


seas who could sing so deep and strong

by heartslogos



Series: i'd rather fall among the stars [3]
Category: Warframe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2018-11-02 01:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 102
Words: 119,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10934580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartslogos/pseuds/heartslogos
Summary: "for love beginning means return/ seas who could sing so deep and strong/ one querying wave will whitely yearn/ from each last shore and home young" - love is the every only god, e.e. cummingsMisc. stories ft Kore and Judge





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suspectmind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suspectmind/gifts).



It's taken Kore two, probably unreasonable and entirely frivolous, hours to get the right set up. But damn it, Kore wants somewhere to sleep that isn’t the floor.

She grimaces, because she knows there was a time when she was happy to even have standing room, even _ecstatic_ to just have solid walls. Here she is with an entire ship at her disposal and she wants a bed on top of that. As if she ever needed a bed to sleep.

But she’s taken all of her syndanas and all the spare cloth, foam, fibers, and other vaguely soft and probably comfortable material she has available on this ship and organized it in a vaguely bed looking shape. There is, technically, a bed that looks like it would fit her just fine in the Helminth chamber. But she doesn’t trust the thing that runs her bio-control systems with her actual physical body while she’s sleeping.

And she figure it’s probably multiple levels of useless if she enters the dream, walks into the Helminth room, lies down, and goes to sleep _inside of a warframe_.

So here she is, ship set to an easy orbit around Earth, probably looking a little crazed as she stands over a strange mass of vague shapes ready to lie down on it.

And she does lie down on it.

Kore takes off the top of her suit, unfastening her boots and lining them up next to what she’s decided is now the foot of the bed, and slowly peels off the lower half of her suit. The air makes her skin slowly ripple with goose-flesh (she wonders where that term came from, for the little bumps of skin that show up on your skin when you’re cold. _What’s a goose_?).

She focuses on letting out just the smallest touch of her Void energy, feeling the heat slowly pool through her veins and bring her back to comfortable.

No point in expending extra energy on heating the ship when she can just heat herself.

Her Kavat reaches out a curious paw and taps at the bedding, turning to give Kore a curious look.

Kore clicks her tongue, “Not for you.”

The Kavat’s ears pin back as the creature lowers itself onto its belly giving Kore a sad gaze as it skulks away.

Kore rolls her eyes and crawls onto the bedding, lying down. She should’ve asked Judge if she could have the stuff he brought on Earth. She’ll ask him next time - knowing Judge, Ugly’s probably stolen them and hidden them in some part of the ship, only to be discovered once the hidden items start interfering with ship processes.

The last time Ugly’s hoard was found, it was because the Kavat had stolen some circuit wires and shoved them into what turned out to be an air filtration pass point. Which does explain why Judge’s ship smelled like acrid metal for so long.

(“i told you I didn’t mess up one of my experiments,” Judge had said wryly as Kore extracted the metal. Her arm is thinner than his and even then was dubious fit because of the bend of the tubes that carry the air take to wrap around the heating system.)

Kore takes a few moments to test it out - find out if there are any hard spots or uneven points that could maybe annoy her later on when she’s too lazy to get up. When she finds everything seemingly alright, she stretches her arm out and crooks her fingers at her sulking Kavat, who’s decided to wedge herself directly behind her mod station.

Her Sentinels come to investigate without being beckoned - Djinn and Carrier both attempt to immediately shove themselves behind her knees and Shade starts to lower itself next to her head, its dangling protrusions lying against her face. Wyrm takes its place on the other side of her head, the soft flesh of its body rippling as it tries to squeeze in as close to her neck as possible. Both DethCube and Helios seem content to watch, while Diriga slowly lowers itself enough that the very bottom most portion of its balloon-like parts brushes the top of the bedding. Its optic sensor immediately dims.

Taxon drops itself onto her stomach and Kore grunts, laughing when her Kavat comes over and bats Taxon off of her. Her Kavat stretches and drapes herself over Kore’s stomach, head shoving her head into Kore’s armpit.

Her Kubrow, for the most part, are watching her with curiosity - but are too large to crowd in with her.

Kore hums, resting her arm over the back of her Kavat and closes her eyes.

She drifts off, easy enough - surrounded in the vague feelings of her warframes below her in storage, the sounds of her Kubrow’s breathing, the occasional twitch of her Kavat’s large ears, and the other miscellaneous sounds of the Orbiter.

Kore isn’t sure if she’s actually asleep or if she was just in that pre-sleep haze when Ordis speaks.

“Operator, a message from Judge. It seems urgent.”

Kore hums a vague acceptance and when she hears Judge’s line come on she mumbles, “What?”

“So,” Judge says, “I. Uh. Are you in a night or day cycle?”

“Night,” Kore says, “Probably.”

“So, you’re done for the day?”

“Yes,” Kore says, yawning.

“Oh.” Judge falls silent, but the line doesn’t cut. Kore can hear the muffled sounds of _something_ on the other side. “So.”

Kore feels the slightest hitch of dread begin at the tips of her toes.

“ _Judge_.”

“So. I might. Um. I might have - how do you always say it? I might have rushed into something I shouldn’t have.”

The feeling irritation is rapidly following at the heels of the dread, which has prickled its way up to her knees and started in at her hands.

“ _Hades_.”

“I just thought that maybe this was something I could do. Without bothering you. Since it’s a night cycle and you’re probably tired. I mean, you did _a lot_ of back-to-back drops to Ceres for alloy and I’m pretty sure you know the entire planet by _heart_ at this point. And I - I just thought it would be a little selfish of me to ask you to do this with me since you’re so tired and all, but also I realize that maybe it’d be a lot selfish of me to, uh, have you take care of my stuff  if I die, so um- “

“ _Fool_.”

“ _I’m in the middle of fighting Lephantis and I’m out of ammo_.”

Kore sits up immediately, sending every single last one of her Sentinels, Kubrow, and single Kavat, scattering.

“You’re _what_?” Even Kore had to give in and team up with some other Tenno for that fight. “ _Are you crazy? You’re in the Derelict fighting Lephantis by yourself?_ Judge, tell me you had the common sense to be in a Rhino frame or Trinity or even _your Nova_.”

She can feel Judge cringing.

“ _You’re in Nova all the time and you chose not to go as Nova this time why?”_ Kore yells into the com, scrambling to pull her suit on. “Ordis, get me to the Derelict. I need to be there in five. Judge, you better survive five minutes before I drop.”

She feels the ship lurch into motion as Ordis begins to reorient them and prep to leave Earth’s gravity.

“I’m in Banshee,” Judge says, “I thought maybe being quiet would help this time.”

A reasonable line of thought _if it were any other fucking target_.

“Ordis, pull Titania,” Kore snaps, “Judge, send me a link. I’ll tap in as soon as I’m in transference.”

“Yes, Kore,” Judge says, voice shrinking, “Um. Hurry, maybe? I’m running out of secondary.”

“What’s your melee?”

Judge is tellingly quiet.

Kore closes her eyes and wonders if there are any appropriate gods she’s read about to pray to.

“Tekko,” Judge finally says and Kore screams into her hands. “ _I didn’t think it’d come to that!”_

 _“Why do you do this_ ,” Kore says, pushing onto her feet, tugging the top of her suit on as she goes. Titania is already loaded into the Arsenal bay. There’s no time for Kore to adjust Titiania’s mods. She should be fine, though.

“I thought I could handle it.”

“If _I_ can’t handle that fight by myself why would you?” Kore groans, “Tell me you didn’t bring Ugly.”

“His name is _Handsome_.”

“Then why does he respond to Ugly?”

“Because _you conditioned him weird_ ,” Judge protests, “And no, I brought my Helios.”

At last, the boy has some sense.

“Ordis, can you push it to three?”

“I will attempt it, Operator.”

“Judge, can you hold out until then?”

“Well, I’ve lasted long enough to kill one head.”

“I’m taking that as a yes. I’m muting my com, but keep me posted. Persephone out.”


	2. Chapter 2

Judge comes out of it slowly. The rest of his orbiter comes into focus, starts to bleed into the edges of his vision, sounds and the ache in his neck and back, the soreness in his eyes, and the throb of his knees. He can hear the soft _whirring_ of the orbiter’s systems, the electric hum of the low lights and screens, the sounds of Ugly and Midas - Kore, too.

He shakes his head a little bit, slowly straightening up and sitting on his heels. He grimaces a bit at the mess he’s made. He’d dragged all of his screens around him - all of them littered with images and half-finished notes done in the short-hand he’s pretty sure only makes sense half the time.

Kore always says he rushes in, but sometimes maybe he hangs back a bit too much. Though that hanging back tends to always fly out the window because she’s right.

When Judge sees something happening he _goes_.

Judge stretches his arms, feels the pull of his muscles and tendons. His elbows each crack and so does his neck with a satisfying series of probably _not good_ sounds.

He turns over his shoulder and croaks out - wow, how long was he working? - “Hey.”

Kore doesn’t even look up at him. She looks comfortable on the bedding she’d arranged on the floor a few feet behind him, Midas splayed on her stomach. The Kubrow pup looks incredibly excited to be where he is - little paws held up as if he’s flying, tongue hanging open, stumpy tail wagging. Judge imagines that he’d be that excited to be in Kore’s lap, too.

Kore is flicking through his codex. She has more entries, overall, into it, but Judge is more thorough and tends to actually finish his research.

He knows she’s heard him, that she’s paying attention to him because -

Well. She’s Kore. Kore doesn’t ever not pay attention to anything.

It’s like that Old Earth saying.

Kore’s resting heart rate is a panic attack.

“I’m hungry,” Judge says to her, “Could you eat?”

Kore’s finger pauses in the middle of her swiping past a long finished entry on wild Kavats. She turns her head towards him, the brilliant yellow-green of her inner eye seemingly focusing in on him like Ugly’s eyes do whenever Judge presents the Kavat with some new thing to scratch up.

She hums, turning back to the screen and shrugging, “Not that hungry.”

Judge presses his hand to his stomach, “Split with me.”

Kore hums some more, Midas’ paws waving up and down as he squirms over her stomach.

“I could use a nibble,” Kore says, eventually.

“How about a bite?” Judge tentatively presses. Kore tends to forget how hungry she is. Frames don’t feel hunger - along with most other bodily functions.

Judge’s lost count with how many times he’s - uh. Well. Pissed himself in his frame because he hadn’t been able to feel his bladder let go.

Kore’s gone through transference for _days_ that Judge knows of and that’s _after_ waking from the dream.

“A side,” Kore grudgingly concedes.

“Fair enough,” Judge pushes to his feet and wobbles. Kore’s eyes fix on him again.

“Do you want me to get it?”

“No,” Judge raises his arms to his side to hold balance, “I’m good. I probably need to get feeling back in my legs, anyway. Watch my stuff. Don’t let Handsome mess it up.”

“Ugly is one giant mess,” Kore replies, eyes back on his codex screen, “Your ship is a mess pile. It can’t get any worse.”

But Kore jerks her head to the side and one of her beasts of a Kubrow, Valencia - a Sunika Kubrow that’s built like a very small _tank_ \- immediately rises up from where she was lying with her head on her paws, and trots over to take Judge’s place in the center of the data mass.

Valencia sits up, ramrod straight, her broad shoulders held back, and her thick chest thrust out, ears at attention.

If Ugly tries to mess with that Kubrow he’s going to be batted aside like a glow-fly, and he’d probably dent the Orbiter.

Judge goes deeper into the ship to the cargo hold. He grabs two water packets - three, on second thought, Kore’s much better at drinking than at eating -, one nutrient brick, and one small half-empty bottle of flavor powder. For a second Judge hesitates between the green and the pink, before settling on the green.

He has a good feeling about the green. And his good feelings aren’t _always_ wrong.

By the time Judge makes his way back up to where Kore is, she’s having a stare off with Ugly, and one of her other Kubrow - her first one, he’s pretty sure, a Huras named Hala - is lying down behind her. Kore’s using Hala as a back rest as she holds her stare off. Judge is pretty sure she’s going to win. Kore’s thousand yard stare has outlasted _Helios_ before.

Helios doesn’t have _eyelids_.

Helios doens't even have _eyes_.

Judge slowly sits down on the bedding next to Kore, reaching behind her to rub Hala’s soft mottled fur. Hala’s ears swivel in his direction but her eyes are focused firmly on his Kavat.

“Handsome,” Judge says.

The traitorous Kavat doesn’t so much as _twitch_.

The corner of Kore’s lip, on the other hand, smugly curves up.

Judge groans, “ _Ugly_.”

The Kavat glances at him.

Judge makes a shooing motion and the Kavat makes a low, grumpy sound, and slinks off to - most likely - shred something semi-important to sustaining life on this ship.

Kore looks unfairly smug when he turns and hands her a water packet. She cracks the plastic seal on it and immediately starts drinking. Judge was right in bringing a second packet for her. While she’s drinking, Judge puts down the two other water packets between them, along with the small container of green flavoring powder and starts working on peeling the nutrient brick open.

The nutrient brick, itself, is a semi-gelatinous off-beige color that has the texture of what Judge imagines mutagen masses would feel like in the mouth, and a taste similar to chewing on your own tongue.

Hence the flavoring powder.

Kore sucks on her water packet, lightly cupping the silvery packet in one hand and holding up the powder container in the other. She gives it a questioning shake.

Because Kore is, of course, the type of hard-ass who doesn’t _use_ flavoring powder. Ever.

“Green flavor,” Judge says, grimacing at the way the nutrient brick _shivers_ as he slowly unwraps it.

Kore reseals her water packet and puts it down, stripping off her gloves and setting them aside. She opens the container and dips her pinky into the powder. She holds it up to her face, nose scrunched as she looks at it.

Judge gives her an encouraging nod.

Kore touches her tongue to her pinky and immediately recoils, mouth sealed as she screams through her lips, eyes squeezing closed.

Hala and Valencia immediately are at attention, barking and Midas yaps, bouncing on his stubby legs.

Judge bursts out _laughing,_ almost dropping the nutrient brick.

Kore gasps, quickly opening her water packet and taking a huge gulp and then screams through her teeth because that makes it worse.

“ _What is that_?” Kore coughs out, “ _That’s - that’s_ \- “

“I’m told it’s based off of a fruit from Earth called a lime,” Judge says in between gasps for air.

“That’s - that’s _awful_ ,” Kore says, entire face puckered.

Judge grins at her, “So?”

Kore glares at him then dips her finger back into the powder.

“Hand me the damn nutrient brick.”

Judge breaks off about a fourth of it and hands it to her, and she hands him the powder.

They both take bites out of the nutrient brick - and Kore waits for Judge to get a bit of powder on his finger before they both raise their fingers to their lips.

The taste is like a screaming punch to the tongue and brain.

Judge’s eyes squeeze closed and he feels Kore rocking, hitting her shoulder against his. Judge’s toes splay out in his boots before he curls them, scraping his heels against the orbiter floor.

“ _It’s got a kick_ ,” Judge rasps out and Kore hisses, “ _No kidding_.”

“But it’s good, right?” Judge says when they both finish with their _first bite_.

Kore nods, “It’s good. Hand me the powder.”

Judge beams at her, “I once let Ugly try it and I’m pretty sure that’s why his face looks that way.”

“Ever consider giving him another taste? Maybe it’d put it back the way he was,” Kore muses.

“Ah, but then he’d make _my_ face look like that - “

“ _So you admit, he’s ugly.”_

“He’s not ugly! On him it’s fine! On me it’d be terrible! _Kore_. Please stop insulting my Kavat. I don’t say anything about your Charger.”

“That’s because you’re too scared to say anything about her,” Kore rolls her eyes, offering the container to Hala and Valencia for inspection. Both Kubrow whine, confused as to why Kore and Judge are acting so weird about something that smells so normal. “She’s such a sweetheart.”

“She has mandibles and a proboscis,” Judge says, “And you grew her out of a cyst for fun. Of course I’m scared of her.”


	3. Chapter 3

Kore is ready to swear right to the face of the Arbiters of Hexis, the Tenno Council, the Lotus, Cephalon Simaris, and literally every other authority that it’s not possible for her to have lost Judge already. They’ve been in this underwater lab for all of _ten minutes_. Where could he have gone? _They’re trapped in a bubble made of Grineer garbage_.

The Lotus had them deploy for an emergency drop - news about Rygor’s latest experiments she’d been able to get from a few other Tenno suggested that the Grineer have several underwater factories on Neptune that are about to release some awful new mutated weapon. Kore, personally, finds a deep and most likely very disturbing satisfaction in shredding whatever mutated flesh the Grineer like to _cook up_.

Kore had quickly dispatched the first few Grineer that they’d run across while Judge checked ahead for traps. By now, for them, it’s a standard procedure. Judge is better at handling traps and navigating through tricky areas and Kore is very good at killing, breaking, or otherwise handling problems that need to be handled.

Judge can’t have gone far.

Kore turns to her Djinn, bobbing next to her head. It just writhes in the air as if to say _I don’t know, either_.

Neptune drops always mess with her coms and her warframe’s radar to the point where it’s useless unless her target or focus is on anything within a few dozen yards of her. Her own sight and hearing is a better metric for checking things.

“Where the hell are you?” Kore mutters into the silent feed, looking around. She rolls the Grineer  Scorpion she’d just kill off to the side with her foot and goes back to searching for Judge. The quiet flame of her Silva is a comforting warmth and not-quite weight in her hand.

She could go ahead and finish the mission - or perhaps _he’s_ gone ahead and already started. But no alarms have gone off yet and Kore’s definitely sure that while Judge has drastically improved in all areas since the incident with the Queens, he hasn’t gotten _that good_.

Kore slowly walks through the hallway as it merges into coral, looking for any telltale sign of Judge going through. She’d long past the remnants of what looked like some Grineer caught surprise and quickly killed. But unfortunately, the Trinity frame doesn’t have much of a signature for identifying causes of death.

She sheathes flicks her wrist and the Silva blade disperses. She shoves the handle back into its compartment on the back of the Aegis and gives her wrist a sharp turn. The shield’s flames die down and it folds against her forearm silently. They hadn’t had time to switch out frames for this mission and she’s still in her Ember frame - bits of Infested still on the soles and calves of her frame. The smell of burning, sickly flesh is something Kore is grateful she doesn’t have to deal with. She supposes that the Orokin were clever in not giving their blow-torch of a weapon a nose to smell all the smoke and burning _everything_ with.

“Hades?” Kore calls out into their transmission line, not really expecting an answer.

“Where the hell have you gone?” Kore swears she’s examining everything in front of her and she has no idea where the hell -

In the very peripheral of her vision, she sees a moving blob of _something_. Kore turns to look out of the large window into the ocean and immediately presses against it, _staring_.

“ _What the hell, Judge_?” Kore screams into the transmission - fully aware he can’t hear her.

The fool is _outside_ in the _water_ , fighting what looks like four Grinner and _two sharks_.

Kore swears viciously - the Grineer have brought sharks to fucking Neptune. _Perfect_.

Judge must see her - she hears her frame let out a burst of irritated flame - and it looks like he’s about to try swimming towards her.

Kore gestures for him to stay where he is and she runs for the nearest waterway entrance.

-

Judge swears that he saw Kore from _this_ window.

He looks down at the ground and can clearly see the black, sooty and somewhat bloody imprint of Ember’s foot on the ground. Judge quickly drags Trinity’s foot over it to smear the mark. No need for the Grineer to be alerted just yet.

And Judge figures that they aren’t because Kore’s too good to leave witnesses and Judge handled all of the ones that were trying to kill him when he was outside.

He honestly thought that it would be a short cut, honest. He just didn’t realize he’d have gotten blown straight out of the Grineer lab because of a thermal vent.

“Kore?” Judge calls out into their transmission line - nothing. He’s not surprised. They’ve always had absolute _shit_ reception down here. It’s the same for when he’s with other Tenno, too.

His Helios makes a soft chirping sound. Nothing.

He has no doubt Kore was hear - the wounds cauterized shut on half the Grineer bodies here is proof. That along with the foot prints and the blade marks.

Judge turns in a slow circle and stops when he sees a bright glowing red-orange light -

“ _Kore_?” Trinity’s hands slam against the thick window pane as he stares at Kore _punching sharks_ in the water.

(Because, of course, the Grineer decided to try modifying sharks and set them lose onto Neptune’s oceans.)

Judge almost slips when he runs back to where he came from to get back out to her.

-

Kore swears when she stomps back to where they started and _doesn’t see Judge_.

She had known she wouldn’t see him because Djinn had floated on ahead of her and came back, making confused gurgling noises the entire time.

Kore immediately starts searching the water outside the window and sees Judge flailing at her from a distance.

Kore throws Ember’s arms up and turns on her heel to get back in the water.

She _hates_ Neptune.

(From space it’s fine, Kore likes watching Neptune’s storms and atmospheric changes - or, most of the time, lack thereof. Right now, though? Kore is ready to drain the damn planet dry.)

-

It takes them four more switches to eventually get in the same place.

Kore is visibly steaming and Judge’s so wound up that Trinity’s fingers wont stop shaking.

Kore abruptly collapses her sword and returns it to its compartment and thrusts her hand out at Judge.

“I am not spending another hour playing tag with you in this stupid ocean,” Kore grinds out. Judge stares at her hand. Then at her Ember’s face.

“Switch to your secondary, take my hand,” Kore says, “I’ll block, you shoot. Use Energy Vampire whenever you can and I’m going to activate World of Fire for as long as possible.”

“The alarms?”

Judge can hear Kore’s dark smirk, “No one to alert if everyone in this damn lab is dead.”

Judge immediately takes Kore’s hand, gun at the ready, “Well. I guess that’s one way to sabotage this Grineer experiment. Not that I’m questioning you - because you know I’d do whatever you say in that specific tone of voice - but how do you plan on us getting across the electrified tiles if we’re holding hands the entire time?”

“I’ll carry you,” Kore replies without missing a beat. “Are you ready?”

“For you? I’m more ready than the Grineer are.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Wait,” Judge pauses as he stares at Kore. She’s entering coordinates into his orbiter’s navigational systems as if she hasn’t just dropped the biggest bomb-shell this side of the war. “ _You have a clan?_ ”

“How else do you think I was able to research Banshee and Helios’ blueprints, Judge?” Kore rolls her eyes, “You know that kind of research is only available to the big clans, right?”

“You never talk to anyone,” Judge says, “You’re allergic to working with other Tenno. I - I don’t know. I thought maybe Simaris liked you that much that he let you copy his archives or something.”

Kore gives him an odd look, “Judge, I only started hunting for Simaris when you did.”

“What?” Judge gapes, “ _How does he like you so much then?_ I thought - you’ve been around longer than I have!”

“I don’t go to the relays,” Kore raises her eyebrows. “I’ve only gone to the relays for the Syndicates before and that was only when I got tired of holding all their shit.”

Judge waves his arms, “You have a clan and I’m only just finding out now?”

Kore rolls her eyes, “You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m - I’m supposed to be good at clues and things,” Judge says, following her as she goes down into his ship to get back to her own. Midas obediently trots after them, bouncing on his little legs, tongue lolling out of his mouth. “How could I have missed that you joined a Tenno clan? What do you - how did you even join?”

  
“I was sent an invite, I accepted. They sent me a badge so I could get past their Dojo security,” Kore shrugs. “It’s not a big deal, Judge. _You’re_ in a Tenno clan.”

“But that’s because I talk to people,” Judge replies, sullen as he stops on the port between their ships. “I can’t believe this.”

Kore’s expression shifts slightly towards amused, “You’ve always been dumb when it comes to me.”

“It goes both ways,” Judge mutters as the doors close and the airlock reseals. Judge waves as she walks back to her ship and then heads to his transference room.

-

There is no one in Kore’s clan Dojo.

It’s not like Judge’s is particularly full, either, but there’s usually at least one or two warframes going around, dropping off research material, checking out blueprints, sparring in one of the adjacent rooms.

Kore goes about like this is per usual, “If anyone’s here they’re probably meditating in the rock garden.”

“Rock garden?”

“Mm,” Kore nods, fiddling with some computers as she loads samples of pigment into a receptacle. And then, Kore - surprisingly - steps out of her warframe and goes to sit on a bench. Judge stares at her, leaves his own warframe and goes to stand in front of her.

She raises a challenging eyebrow as he points between her, her warframe, and then the room at large.

“There’s no one here,” Kore shrugs, “I don’t care if there’s no one here.”

“I’m here.”

“Like I said,” Kore smirks, “No one’s here.”

Judge glares at her. Kore leans back, arms behind her head as the computer runs its analysis.

“All the Tenno in my clan are awake,” Kore says, “They only invite other awoken Tenno.”

“You’ve known other awoken Tenno this whole time?” Judge throws his arms up. “Are you kidding?”

“Fucking take it down from sixty, Judge,” Kore rolls her head back, “How do you think I keep getting us stuff? Like clothes?”

“I don’t know, you were buying it at Maroo’s or something?”

Kore gives Judge a hard look, “Judge. How suspicious do you think it’d look if a warframe - like say, Saryn or Nidus or even _Rhino_ , went to the shops and picked out _children’s underwear and clothing_? I’m not setting myself to look like some lecherous shit.”

Judge winces because that is very true.

“I know a Tenno who knows a Tenno who sews clothes in their spare time,” Kore says, “You just need to give them your measurements and if you have any special requests send them the cloth.”

“How much do they charge?”

“Well, I grow stuff,” Kore says, “And synthesize things so I’d been trading dye and basic medicines.”

“Kore, are you part of a Tenno underground barter ring?”

Kore gives him an entirely unamused look.

Judge blinks, “Is this why you were measuring me with string the other day?”

“What, did you think that was for fun?” Kore barks out a laugh, “The clothes are ready today. We’ll meet my contact later. They’re one of my clan-mates. They work as a middle-person for a reasonable charge.”

“Speaking of - can you tell me more about your clan?”

Kore shrugs. Judge takes the seat at the other end of the bench, leaving ample space between them. After a moment Judge tentatively holds out his hand, palm up.

“Yes or no?”

Kore pointedly doesn’t look at him, but she folds her arms across her chest and turns her body away from him a little. “Yes.”

Judge carefully moves across the seat and after a careful moment of deliberation, puts his arm over her shoulders. Lightly - mostly resting on the back of the seats.

Kore, after a tense breath, leans into his side.

“So. What can you tell me about the other Tenno? Do you remember any of them?”

Kore shrugs again.

“Do any of them remember you?” Judge presses, “What about me? Were any of them like me? I know there were others and - wait, did you find any other of the old Saryns?”

“Dunno. Never talked to them.” Kore examines her boot, then bends forward to pick at something on it. “Maybe? I think I’ve only seen one without their transference hood. Honestly, I don’t know, Judge. It’s possible, yeah.”

Judge stares at the side of her head.

“We don’t talk unless it’s to ask for trades and stuff,” Kore says. “We’re private people.”

“I can’t believe you managed to find a clan full of anti-social Tenno exactly like you. _And you make it work_.”

Kore lets out a long, annoyed sigh.

“I should’ve just let you rot in your grungy underwear,” She says. “Stinky boy.”

Judge grins and before he can say anything she kicks his ankle.

“ _My_ stupid stinky boy,” She concedes.


	5. Chapter 5

There is a very short list of questions Kore makes sure to ask herself before she goes to sleep. Not stressful sleep - sleeping sitting up in her transference chamber or catching a few hours - minutes, even - in between deployments.

When Kore sleeps for rest - for hours at a time, purposefully and in the safety and security of her own ship, she asks herself these things as she slowly relaxes her body and prepares for the very different sort of drop into unconsciousness.

One, does she love Judge? The answer is, of course, _yes_. She has not told him this - she’s not really certain if he _knows_ this. But she does. There is no way for her to talk her way around it, no way for her to compress that feeling and fact down tight like everything else. She loves him. This is dangerous. This is a shard in the blood, slowly working its way to the heart. But she loves him.

Does Kore love him for the right reasons?

Sometimes Kore thinks _maybe_. Most of the time the answer to this - listening to Judge’s breathing and soft mumbling through the communications line that they like to keep open when they both happen to be on the same night cycle - is no.

Kore loves Judge. She loves him because he is someone she remembers clearly and vividly. She loves him because from the moment she saw that Mag wake for the first time after the war, Kore has been slowly and quietly growing attached to him and what he means. She loves him because he is steady and hard and vibrant.

She loves him for other reasons, but she thinks that if it weren’t for that first main reason she would never have cared for him at all. Kore is fairly certain that dependency is not a good reason to love anyone. There are other reasons why she love shim, but the first one that leads to all the others is - at best - dubiously acceptable.

Which answers her third question of _is that okay?_ No. Not really.

Question four is one she slides over easily.

Does Judge love her back?

The answer to this is _sometimes_. Which Kore accepts more easily than she accepts most things. Judge loves her - she knows this. He wouldn’t have stayed with her for so long, wouldn’t have done so much for her, wouldn’t be so focused on _being with her_ if this weren’t true.

Whether this love is the same as Kore’s or not, she isn’t so sure.

Judge loves her back when he remembers she’s around. When Judge is in the middle of a case, a problem, a mystery - when Judge is up to his elbows digging through information and sorting it into things he can understand and run through in seamless continuous loops, he forgets everyone and everything. Judge’s mind trips up and focuses entirely on what’s in front of him. Consequences, future problems, results, external factors - they drop away and all Judge can see is that invisible and intangible path to what he wants.

Kore is very rarely at the end of this path, or anywhere on this path. Kore is a tool Judge can use on that path to get to the end of it.

This does not hurt her as much as she thought it would. Kore has poked and prodded at this statement many times in her idle moments - expecting a sting, some sort of resistance in her mind. But the statement flows over and through her like breathing. Space is big. Kore is a Tenno. Ember uses fire. Frost uses Ice. Judge sometimes uses her to get to his own ends.

This does not hurt her. This statement does not have the power to hurt her.

She is not surprised at this, or disturbed by this. This is something that she enfolds into her heart, another shard.

If it were anyone but Judge, she thinks, there would be something in her that rebels against the thought. But it is Judge, and for Judge there are many exceptions inside of her.

Maybe it’s because Kore knows Judge loves her back whenever he’s fully present and not fixated on something else. Judge, eventually, always comes back to being fully present and not otherwise preoccupied. Kore has her moments. They have their moments.

Question five asks - _is that okay?_

Yes. Without hesitation, _yes_. Absolutely this is perfectly fine. Kore did not stay with him for so long with the expectation of being loved in return.

For almost a solid year or two, in fact, Kore stayed with him without expectation of him ever knowing who she is.

Question six is more complicated.

Is she _happy_?

The answer to this is a quiet, simple, unassuming _no_. Kore is not happy. This does not mean she is sad, in pain, or otherwise - well. In the negative. Kore is not happy, but she is none of those other things, either.

For the most part Kore is - in the middle, somewhere. Flying by, coasting on fumes and other people’s directives. This would bother her if she had her own ambitions and goals. Kore has no goals, dreams, or ambitions. If she ever had any, they are gone or out of her reach, now.

Kore’s main objectives are fighting whatever happens to be around and deserving, and keeping Judge’s heart beating in his chest and probably the rest of him in one relatively undamaged piece. The latter is a goal Judge seems to be actively resisting her on.

Sometimes Kore is frightened. Occasionally she is happy, excited, nervous, euphoric - for a time. But that always fades. Overall, Kore is alright. Not okay, not well, but alright. She does not know if this is the product of always pushing everything in her soul down, down, down into the depths of her where she can’t see them, where they are all unshaped and indiscernible shadows. Maybe it is.

Mostly - mostly Kore is just. Alive.

Question seven. Is _that okay?_

_Yes._


	6. Chapter 6

Kore sucks at her water packet contemplatively, brows furrowed as she thinks.

Their legs swing over the edge of the rock outcrop they’ve found overlooking the Grineer settlement the Lotus wants them spying on. They probably won’t be the Tenno she deploys for the eventual take-down, but gathering the information needed for that future operation is just as important.

Judge watches a Grineer butcher pick his nose through his binoculars as Kore thinks.

“I think I’d like to fight a bear,” Kore eventually says. “Rather than a dragon, I mean. I don’t think bears breathe fire.”

Judge sets down the binoculars and laughs, “Kore, bears aren’t _real_. They were just made up to scare humans and as monsters in old Earth games.”

“You don’t know that! They could be real!” Kore says defensively, hunching her shoulders. “Besides, I bet you they’re more real than dragons.”

“If bears are more real than dragons why is there more documentation on dragons than on bears? And something can’t be _more real_ than something else. There’s no _measurement_ for real!”

Kore glares at him as Judge laughs.

“Alright, fine. How would you fight a bear if it were real?” Judge says when he calms his laughter down enough. “All the files on bears say are that they’re big and mean - and there’s that one digital clip from an old Earth game that shows them taking down people in armor with one swipe of their paws.”

Kore straightens up, nose upturned as she looks away from him, “You’re just making fun of me now. Never mind. It was your question, anyway.”

“I asked you if there’s anyone you’d like to fight, not if you’d like to fight an old Earth myth,” Judge says. “Come on, Kore. I promise I’m not making fun of you. How would you fight a bear?”

Judge carefully touches his ankle against hers. She kicks him but then immediately hooks her leg around his afterwards.

“Well. They look mean up close so I’d go with a ranged frame. Maybe take it by surprise? Banshee with my Rubico,” Kore says. “Or my Ember since they look like they catch fire easy. All that fur and stuff. And how would _you_ fight a dragon?”

“Probably the same way I fight Lephantis,” Judge shrugs, holding the binoculars up again to see if nose-picking Grineer has moved at all.

Kore makes a puzzled sound, “But you don’t fight Lephantis?”

“Yeah, I call _you_ to do it for me,” Judge says, grinning even when Kore scoffs and elbows him.

“I can’t tell if you’re lazy or spoiled o both,” Kore says, “Stupid.”

“I’m using my resources like any smart Tenno should. As the Lotus says, it’s not always about a frontal assault.”

-

There is no room in Kore’s world for gods or miracles. She has made room for exactly three things: violence, things that she has made to need her more than she needs them, and the ghosts of memories.

Judge has found a way to carve a space for himself in her that fits at the overlapping center of these three things. And so, by extension, Kore is reluctantly made to care for those that he cares for as well.

Which is why they are hunting Corpus.

Well, Kore is hunting Corpus. Judge is here for hostages.

“How are you so bad at this?” Judge grinds out through his teeth as he slings a half-unconscious agent over his Mag’s shoulder, pulling out an emergency capsule for first aide. “You keep me safe all the time and these people are mostly more competent than I am.”

Kore, in all honesty, has no patience for rescue missions. Which is why the Lotus almost never makes her take them.

Judge, on the other hand, has no patience for Kore’s lack of patience with other people.

Kore ignores him as he carefully places the capsule against the agent’s outer thigh and hits the button on the top that will depress the syringe and the medicine inside of it. Instead she uses Valkyr’s rip-chord to yank a Corpus crew member at her and slam him into the ground, face first with her free hand.

Valkyr’s skin hums, _pleased_ and _satiated_ when they release the man’s neck and see blood pooling on the clear pane of his helmet.

She does not understand the Corpus. She does not like the Corpus. She has yet to meet a single one who doesn’t make her skin crawl.

Something in them reminds her too much of the Orokin. Something in them scrambles and begs for scraps of the Orokin empire.

The Corpus and their worship of money and the old Orokin empire is incapable of coexisting with Kore. Their fanatical greed is foreign to her. Money is money. Things are things.

People are people.

The Orokin were monsters in disguise as people.

At least the Tenno are honest about what they are.

“Are you done?” Kore asks, Valkyr’s hands restlessly opening and closing with the desire to rip and shred and tear every single metal panel off of the walls and dig into the wires behind to royally fuck something up. Let the cameras see.

Valkyr is the result of the Orokin and Corpus and their violent, brutal, invasive disregard for people. She’s just turning it back on them.

Sometimes Valkyr’s high-strung rage is too exhausting for Kore.

Sometimes it’s just enough.

Now is one of those times where it is perfect and all encompassing and warm. Saryn is too calm, too steady, for this. There are times when Kore wants to feel as though she is on fire and bursting from her own skin and raw with it. There are times when Kore wants to feel like a wave at the edge of balance, about to crash down.

Kore feels jittery and big.

She feels like hunting.

“Done,” Judge says, voice tense, “Get us out of here.”

“Keep up,” Kore replies, breathless - Valkyr is already running forward. No need for a sword or her guns. All Kore needs are her fists and legs and the simple weapons attached to them. She feels the vibration of impact with every strike and it builds and it builds and it builds.

Valkyr has a mouth. Valkyr made her own mouth.

They are not things to be muzzled and silenced.

They made their own freedom.


	7. Chapter 7

It is not Kore’s intention to linger long at Maroo’s Bazaar.

For one thing, Maroo irritates her. Most people do, but Maroo is exceptional in that Kore has a distinct type of irritation just for her. Kore has a distinct kind of irritation for most traders and merchants. It is not always related to the thoughts of the Corpus and the phantom-memories that the Valkyr warframe seems to carry with it.

Another reason is that Kore is uneasy around so many people. She can’t watch _all_ of them. All of them, however, could easily be watching her. It’s paranoia beyond belief, but it is something that has been printed and rubbed and sanded into her skin through years of training and _conditioning_. Years of isolation during and after the war. Years of being alone in her own head.

Judge’s isolation presents itself as a tactile need and paranoia of always being in an endless cycle of dream-wake, unable to trust his own senses without external and independent confirmation.

Kore’s rears its head as a violent, snapping and electric mad-scramble in her chest that tries to suck her in like a black hole until she is nothing, invisible, _gone_. Untouchable as Judge likes to call her, but also _unknowable_.

(Ironically, it is something in her chest - that same something, or maybe a sister of it - that yowls and scratches and cries to be _known_. To be _understood_. To be _seen_. To be _wanted_. Not from everyone. From a very specific person. The same person who named her _untouchable_.

Is to be _untouchable_ the same as _unobtainable_?)

There is too much noise here, too many moving variables - unpredictable and undeniable. The best Kore can do when navigating the necessary annoyance is to go using some of her most unfriendly warframes.

Nidus, Nekros, Valkyr - the ones that do not invite closeness or any lingering attention.

She’s gotten the most she can get for the dozens upon dozens of blue Ayatan stars she’d been finding. Normally she would just save them until she had enough appropriate statues _and then_ sent them to Maroo for Endo but it’s the third time that a gem has gotten stuck in her Carrier’s vacuum port and she knows it’s only a matter of time before one of her Kubrow chokes on one. Her Kubrow aren’t stupid or as invasively curious as Judge’s Kavat, but she’d rather not risk losing one of her Kubrow to something as stupid as them accidentally swallowing a gemstone and choking to death.

Kore is not here for anything else than that - she is not here to barter, buy, or sell. Kore’s business at this station is done.

And yet -

Nidus and her own attention is drawn to a row of vendors, their wares displayed with bright colors and whizzing machines to catch attention. Kore normally has no need to look at any merchants that aren’t selling weaponry, materials to build weapons, or other such things.

Most things a Tenno could need or want on the physical side of things can be obtained through careful trading. It is not a good idea to be wandering around bartering and buying things for a child’s body when the entire system is unaware of the Tenno’s true origin.

Kore knows how to synthesize nutrient bricks and water packets aren’t especially suspicious to buy. Flavor powder is also easy to synthesize and there are about a dozen different Tenno she knows of that she can get into contact with to trade for some. Kore also knows some Tenno for clothing and other such aesthetic needs. There’s also a chain-group of Tenno who send each other fragments of data for free as long as you contribute back. Kore is part of this group because it requires no talking aside from statements of where, when, and how such data was found.

Easy enough and it can be transmitted through text instead of audio.

But toys? Candy? Games?

Those do not have places in the Tenno network. They do not have places in Kore’s world.

Kore’s focus lingers on a brightly colored display surrounded by children.

Children are not so rare on Maroo’s station. Refugees, escapees, children of outcasts and merchants and soldiers and Syndicate members and other planets.

Kore has a very brief and very nauseating image of herself as one of those grubby children - jostling for position in front of the stand, whining and wishing her parents could spare more credits.

From here she can pick out the things the merchant is describing for them. A quick search of the vendor’s information through Maroo’s database shows that he specializes in replications of Old Earth candy and sweets.

“ _And this,”_ The man holds up - Kore zooms in - a small rectangular case and shakes it, “This, children, is _chewing gum_. You chew it and it starts out hard and dry between your teeth but the more you chew the more it softens and it becomes sweet. Or sour. Or cold. Or hot. All depending on what flavor you pick.”

Kore’s mind flashes to Judge and his bitten lips and his hands that always seem to wander to touch and grip and search for something to hold onto. For something to anchor him to here and now and the promise of reality.

Kore is not here for Judge. Kore is not here for old earth candy and what is most likely a scam. He might not even like it. Maybe _Judge_ would choke on the damn thing.

Maybe Ugly will choke on one.

Nidus’ fingers slowly curl and uncurl at the frame’s side - patiently waiting for Kore’s decision. It should be clear.

Go. Your business is done.

Nidus slowly turns on his heel to head back towards the landing bay docks, a wry curl of _are you sure?_ that winds itself around her soul like a Kavat’s tail. Kore feels her own irritation at herself.

Fucking _fine_ , Kore thinks at her heart, _you win_.

Nidus goes to find a hidden nook. Kore hates this idea already.

Kore stares down at her kneeling Nidus frame, and reaches her hand out. Nidus leans into her palm. Her skin already feels like it’s crawling and she’s only standing in a narrow niche by the landing bay. No one is even here looking at her. She checked.

No cameras.

Kore takes in a deep breath and Nidus’ hand reaches up to tap its long fingers against the back of hers, slow and sluggish movements with a touch of timeless grace that only the Infested seem to have.

She unzips her hood from her suit, folding it and puts it on Nidus’ lap. Nidus’ other hand goes to hold it immediately. She stares down at the rest of herself and there’s no mistaking that she looks like _not a normal child_.

Between the pink hair, her eyes, and her somatic scarring -

Kore groans softly and puts her head in her hands. This is a terrible idea.

For once in her damn life she wishes she listened to Ballas and stuck with the creams and golds and pretty blue-greens. That would blend in. That would make her look forgettable.

But here she is in her stark black and white with her gold and pink looking like such obvious - _obviousness_.

Kore takes a deep breath and then does a quarter turn on her heel. She hears the soft almost squeak of her boot on the shiny floors.

She grinds her teeth and steps out into the light.

Kore isn’t much taller than the other children already at the stall and while she did draw some looks, her own glare was enough to make sure those looks were cut short. She can feel her heart in her palms. She swallows softly as she carefully lingers at the back of the crowd.

Her skin feels like it is literally _crawling_ with Infested maggots. She’s been brushed against, looked at, bumped, jostled, and any plethora of slight touches that are making her mind rapidly retreat into the deepest recesses of her.

And now there’s this crowd of six to seven children that are elbow-to-elbow that she has to somehow figure a way to squeeze into.

Kore can feel herself blanching.

She’s saved, for once, by her own appearance when the merchant in charge of the stall notices her lingering and waves her over.

“Pretty girl, in the pink! You want something sweet to match your face?”

Kore, in a desperate attempt at anonymity, had taken out her piercings and switched the part of her hair to cover her somatic scars. It works as long as she keeps her head down at an angle and is very careful about how she moves.

She grinds her teeth and slowly inches forward, heart pounding so hard against her chest she thinks it’s a miracle that she hasn’t bruised her own organs.

“Don’t be shy, make room brats, make room,” the man waves at the children already assembled who squeeze closer together giving her appraising glances as they make a _sliver_ of space for her.

Kore slots in with a deep breath and forces down the buzzing in her ears.

After a few seconds she realizes the man is still talking to her and she glances up, body tensing at the hand thrust in her face. It’s not the chewing gum he’s holding this time, but something else.

Kore forces her mouth to open, to take in air and she forces the words out - “Chewing gum.”

“Pardon? Speak up, girl!”

 _Ballas’ voice echoes in her head and Kore feels a spark at her knuckles that she desperately drowns_.

“Chewing gum,” Kore repeats, “I heard you had some. Is there still any left?”

“Sure, plenty for a sweet girl like you,” he says and she hears him moving around to - presumably - get some. Kore doesn’t look up from the colorful riot of candy on display in her direct line of sight. “What flavor do you want?”

Kore drags her eyes up just enough to see the many boxes he’s holding. Green, pink, red-orange, yellow, darker-green, white-green and -

“What’s blue?” Kore asks.

He puts the other boxes down and flips the blue one open and rattles it, gesturing for her hand.

“It’s easier to show than to tell, dear. Have a taste.”

Kore slowly raises her hand towards him - the memories are violently threatening to follow that hand and Kore begs them not to. Not here. Not right now.

( _Kore kneels, hands raised in front of her as Ballas counts out one, two, three pills. Enough nutrition to keep her alive through five straight days of combat if she moves fast and constant. Not enough for what he wants from her._

_“Please,” Kore croaks out, “Master.”_

_Ballas hums speculatively before dropping two more in her hands._

_“Do not waste it.”_

_“No, Master.”)_

Kore puts the small thumb-sized square between her lips. It feels smooth, like a pill. And then she carefully closes her teeth around it.

Just like he said - at first it’s just like nothing. Plastic. But the more she chews the softer it becomes. And then cold. Cold. Bitterly cold as if she had been in Frost on Europa for a few cycles. It coats her mouth and throat and lungs with it.

Kore blinks, startled into looking up and meeting the man’s eyes. Or where his eyes would be if he weren’t wearing a visor screen.

He smiles.

“All the blue ones,” Kore says.

The man pauses, “All?”

“All the blue ones you have,” Kore says - and then, on a whim, “White-blue, white-green, and half of your orange-red.”

The children begin to chatter around her but she ignores them.

“Maybe you should ask your parents first, sweet,” He says slowly but she knows merchants and she knows she has her hook in his gaping mouth already.

Kore moves quickly, jostling children aside until she’s in front of the credit transfer device at the edge of his stall and opens it up.

“How much?” Kore says, fingers at the ready.

Greed is a poison Kore knows how to use well.

“Twenty thousand credits,” He says, “For just all my stock of blue. Another twenty thousand for the white-blue and white-green stock together. Fifteen thousand for half my orange-red.”

“Any bulk discount?” She asks.

The man hesitates and she can see him running the numbers in his head.

“Twenty thousand for the blue, fifteen thousand for the white-blue and white-green combined. I won’t budge on the orange-red.”

“I’m buying you out,” Kore says, “Thirty thousand for the blue, white-blue, and white-green together. Ten thousand for the orange-red. And maybe I’ll come back. Maybe I’ll buy more.”

She knows that if Judge has this problem there are probably other Tenno that do. And she can probably trade this chewing gum for some other things. Or for favors. It never hurts.

“Exactly! You’re buying me out! I should be keeping stock for other children,” The man complains, “Greedy.”

Kore raises a single eyebrow and flicks her wrist, deactivating the credit terminal.

“Suit yourself. I’ll just get pop-rocks at some other vendor,” Kore jerks her head down the row. “I hear they have the same affect.”

Her heart still pounds in her chest.

She does not want pop-rocks. Pop-rocks are too dangerous and are too easy to synthesize incorrectly.

She wants the chewing gum.

Kore forces herself to extract her body from the children and turn to walk away.

“ _Wait_ ,” The man cries out, “Fine! Who are your parents, girl, that you learned to drive such a hard bargain? You planning on starting a business? Give me warning if you do.”

Kore begs herself to keep an even breath as she turns around and begins the credit transfer. It’s not like she’s using her credits for much aside from DNA stabilizers for her Kubrow and Kavat.

“Maybe,” Kore says, and then patiently waits for the man to pack up the boxes of chewing gum and hand them over to her. “Thank you.”

Kore hurries back as fast as she can without looking suspicious to her warframe.

Nidus is exactly where she left him and looks completely undisturbed.

Kore puts the boxes down and throws her arms around it, focusing on breathing steady. The warframe slowly puts its hands on her shoulders and awkwardly pats.

She pulls back and refastens her hood to her suit - and after a moment - begins to seal it up. Kore doesn’t normally do that, but right now -

The less of her exposed the better.

She needs to disappear.

Kore sinks into Nidus as the frame begins to move and pick up the boxes upon boxes.

No one gives her Nidus a second glance as they leave the station, gum and all.


	8. Chapter 8

"That's it!” Kore yells down to him, from here Judge can see that her face is red and blotchy with exertion and anger. “We wasted all this damn time _for thirty eight hundred credits_.”

“That can't be it,” Judge calls back to her from the lower platform he’s on. Ugly gives him an annoyed look from the platform Judge had firmly told the Kavat to sit on. Ugly, being an incredibly lazy creature, was more than happy to oblige him for once. “Kore, there has to be something else. There must be some sort of hidden cache we haven’t found. Or maybe we did the sequence wrong.”

Kore snarls, “Did I fucking stutter when I gave you the directions? _No_.”

Kore’s Nidus is sitting passively on one of the other pressure pads, the light of pads around him a dull orange from being used. Her Kubrow, Isha - one of her smaller ones, a mottled green and cream, an incredibly bubbly Sahasa with a fantastic knack for finding and fetching body parts  - barks enthusiastically. Both Kubrow and warframe are across the circular room on two other musical platforms.

“Hang on, let me get up there,” Judge says, preparing to void-jump.

“I’ve been around this entire damn room _three times_ ,” Kore snaps, stepping back for him when he void-jumps up to her. Her entire body rings with tension. “I didn’t miss anything. I’m telling you, I found the reward for completing this stupid music puzzle, _and it’s thirty eight hundred credits_.”

“The hidden prize for the music puzzle can’t be thirty eight hundred credits,” Judge says, following her as she leads him to what looks like a somewhat impressive dias with what looks like three fake sleeper pods on each side. Each of the sleeper pods is open and revealing a blue light, and there’s a broken container in the center of the six of them.

“Count them, thirty eight hundred,” Kore says, jabbing her finger in the direction of the music platforms, “ _My Kubrow sneezes and finds thirty eight hundred credits, Judge_. We’ve been here for _two hours_ and we cleared out everyone else _ages ago_.”

It was, indeed, pathetically easy. Judge isn’t sure if that’s because the Grineer and Corpus were fighting each other so intently or because Kore was particularly enthusiastic due to cabin fever.

Judge looks around while Kore mutters under her breath.

“This is taking _forever_ ,” Kore grumbles, “I can feel myself _aging_. I’m reaching _puberty_ as we speak.”

“Wait, what?” Judge’s brain scrambles to a halt as he was mentally retracing their steps. He gapes at her. “Weren’t you thirteen on the Zariman?”

Kore’s face flushes even redder, “Yeah, _so_?”

“Wouldn’t you - “ Judge gestures at her, helplessly, “I mean, I thought that - “

“ _Puberty isn’t at a set age, Judge_ ,” Kore snaps, “Some people are _late bloomers_. I mean _look at you_.” She gestures at him, “I have to hold your hand through sabotage missions because you still haven’t figured out _avoid running over fire._ ”

“Is this why the Lotus told me to be careful with you?” Judge blinks.

“No, she told you that because she meddles where she isn’t wanted and because I’m _a delicate and fragile creature_ ,” Kore retorts, swiping her hand at a decoration and melting through it with her void powers.

Judge snorts, quickly smothering the sound when she glowers at him.

He’s pretty sure that she’s more irritated that they’ve run out of people to kill rather than them not finding anything particularly interesting after solving the Orokin puzzle or this taking so long.

“Not even a fucking _mod_ ,” Kore mumbles turning away from him and kicking one of the golden pods. She seems to be particularly pleased with this movement. She repeats it again. “No coordinates, no blueprints, no mods, not even some damn _endo_. And these places are always bursting with endo.”

Kore growls and then swings her leg up high, pushing her void energy into her foot as she kicks one of the raised up panels of the fake pod.

Judge winces when it goes flying. Kore looks abruptly delighted.

“That’s not going to get more credits, or mods, or blueprints, or _endo_ ,” Judge points out. “You don’t have to break everything. As you always tell _me_ whenever we go out on missions.”

“That’s different. You break things on accident. I break things on _purpose_ ,” Kore replies. And then with a speculative look, trots over to the broken off panel and lifts it.

Judge watches her - it’s not like he could _stop_ her whenever she gets into a particularly _creative_ mood.

Kore hefts the panel up, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth and an extremely bright look in her neon colored eyes. The grin she gives him is practically _fiendish_ and she takes aim at another raised panel.

The golden panel crashes - Judge hears Isha and Ugly barking and yowling in response - and it sends the second panel flying with a loud _bang_ into a wall. The wall cracks and dents with the force of it.

“Only Orokin things can destroy Orokin things,” Kore says, viciously pleased with her violence.

Judge refrains from pointing out that the Orokin as they know them aren’t around anymore for her to piss off, destroying their abandoned space stations and buildings isn’t any kind of revenge or vengeance.

He refrains from pointing out that _they themselves_ are Orokin things made to destroy Orokin things, that were in turn made to destroy other things. In hindsight, the Orokin made a lot of things that they fucked up on, and needed to make new things to get rid of the old ones.

Judge says none of this because he knows that Kore is fully aware of all of this. Kore, he thinks, holds many of these truths inside of her. He thinks that these things are what makes her glow so gold.

Kore drops the panel in her hands and kicks it aside, face resembling something like a disturbingly pleased predator from Earth.

It is probably not a look that should make Judge’s stomach do cartwheels.


	9. Chapter 9

Boarding Judge’s ship is always something like lucid dreaming. Kore is distinctly aware of something off, but can never exactly put her finger on it.

His ship is an exact copy of hers - with key differences in color and internal decorations, and of course the fact that it always feels about five or six degrees cooler

As soon as the doors hiss open she flinches at the cold air, feeling goose-bumps all over her exposed skin. Her bare feet make soft sounds on the Orbiter floor, eyes narrowing as they adjust to the much darker interior - lit mostly by displays of screens that Judge has flickering haphazardly around his ship.

Everything in it is familiar to her in that she has been here before, and that at its core it is the same basic plan as her own ship. But it’s all - skewed. Just a little.

It is entirely Judge-based. Everything is at his eye-level, everything fits the spaces of his body, his mind. Kore finds herself lifting her legs a little higher to avoid small piles of decorations and models that for Judge would be only a slightly larger step, but for her shorter legs it comes up awkward.

As usual, there’s a mess of strings and chords everywhere, physically tying and connecting together the screens displaying information Judge feels is relevant and - inexplicably to Kore - linked together by some unseen mystery. Judge has many of these and Kore knows the rudimentary basics of what he’s called an organization system at best.

She finds him sitting in the middle of his mess - everything perfectly within arms reach that he could need. Water packets, the boxes of chewing gum - some half opened and a few spilling their contents onto piles and piles of data storage, control panels, bits of circuitry and parts and evidence and more and more screens.

“I’m going to use your foundry,” Kore announces to him, and he glances at her - eyes skipping over her bare skin.

It has taken time, but he’s slowly growing used to seeing her exposed. Kore, herself, is growing used to being seen.

“Sure,” Judge says, focus easily sliding back to whatever mystery her fool of a detective has set his rabbit-fast mind to. “Why, what’s wrong with yours?”

“Nothing, I’m using it for something already,” Kore says, taking a few seconds to reorient herself as she stands in front of his foundry. Hers, but not the same.

She opens the panel for blueprints he currently has, flicking through them with a small curl of amusement. So many things Judge has but hasn’t made, he probably doesn’t even know half of this stuff is here.

Fortunately, she finds what she’s looking for and makes a small, pleased sound.

Judge makes his own half-questioning, half-distracted sound in the back of his throat. She glances over her shoulder and his magenta eyes are narrowed - squinted, really - at one of the screens as he runs his thumb over his lower lip.

“What happened?” Judge asks as Kore turns around, leaning against the Foundry. Judge waves his free hand at her. “Something wrong with your suit?”

Kore is currently wearing only a sleeveless shirt and a pair of shorts - both an off-gray.

“I was working on the pigmentation on my Rhino,” Kore says, “I didn’t want pigment on my suit, so I took it off.”

Kore wiggles her bare toes, a steady crawl of adrenaline from being so _open_. So seen.

(But not vulnerable, she reminds herself. To be seen is not always to be vulnerable.

It can be with Judge. But not like this. Not right now.)

She scratches the back of her calf, feeling the faint lines of the scratches Ugly left a few weeks ago. Not enough to really hurt or do any lasting damage - three annoying lines of itchy scabbing. Judge had looked contrite, unsure if Ugly’s actions had spooked Kore or not.

Kore’s own Kavat, Joy, had reacted by tackling Ugly into a wall as the two got into a hissing fight. The fight ended by Ugly’s tail getting caught into Kore’s Carrier’s vacuum port. Both Kavat and Sentinel were making deeply unhappy noises.

Joy was laughing in the way only Kavat’s seem to be able to - sounding like she’s dying on her own air and enjoying it immensely.

(Kore had taken an hour or so to untangle Kavat and Sentinel, chiding her Carrier - “Ugly’s already _ugly_ as it is. Don’t make it worse for him. What would he do then?”)

Judge hums and Kore lightly whistles, because she had a feeling that Judge would already have the blueprint she needs loaded into his Foundry.

He doesn’t look up as two of Kore’s Kubrow trot in, but he _does_ when he _hears_ what they’re carrying.

Hala and Valencia happily deposit the squirming flesh at her feet and Kore pets them both under the chin.

Judge stares, “ _What did you bring onto my ship?”_

 _“Juggernaut guts_ ,” Kore replies, grinning. “Specifically, pulsating tubercles, a severed bile sac, infected palpators, and a chitinous husk.”

Judge gags, “ _But why is it on my ship_?”

“Because,” Kore replies, picking up the bile sac and opening the material deposit on the Foundry and tossing it in. It lands with a slight _squelch_ and a strange sort of wiggling bounce. It makes something inside of her incredibly curious and _pleased_. “ _Because_ , Judge. I’m going to be using your foundry to make a Pherliac Pod.”

“Why?”

“Because _my_ foundry is currently making some Pherlaic pods and I want to get as many as possible going,” Kore answers, smacking one of the tubercles as it tries to stick to her ankle, “Obviously.”

She manages to squeeze in the infected palpators and then the husk.

Once she’s finished setting the Foundry up to go, she moves to stand next to Judge.

The semi-organized chaos of her ship should make her feel uninvited - without a place for her. It is, as Judge says of many of the Tenno eccentricities, a result of living inside your own head for too long.

Judge shakes his head, focus already slipped back to his mystery.

He wordlessly holds his arm out around the back of her legs - a question half-asked. Kore raises her hand and runs his through his hair, scratching at his scalp in her own half-answer.

Judge then loops his arm around her legs, hugging her at his side. He rests his cheek on her thigh, distractedly turning his face to press a quick kiss to her skin.

It sends a fizzing hot burst through her nerves, the goose-flesh over her skin not quite because of cold anymore.

“Nice toes,” Judge says. Kore wiggles them, crossing her arms as she looks down at the bright green paint on the nails. “Is your Rhino going to be that vivid?”

“Gross, no,” Kore replies. They both know that she doesn't like her warframes to be particularly bright. “Changed his pigment to dark red.”

“What was it before, again?”

“Black and then a brighter red for accents. I didn’t like it, so I changed it,” Kore replies, “Now he matches my Saryn.”

Judge hums, thumb idly stroking a line on her leg, “Nice.”

Kore looks over his head at some of his other screens. She has a few guesses as to what he’s working on, but nothing concrete. She wonders if Judge has any idea, himself.

She’d ask him, but he’ll tell her when he’s good and ready. Usually when he wants someone to bounce reckless ideas off of, to help eliminate the fantastic and whittle it down to the realistic. Kore doesn’t mind being his cold dose of reality.

Judge’s skin is warm despite how cold it is, and Kore wonders how silly and strange it must be of her to want him to kiss her thigh again - just like before. She wonders how silly and strange it must be for her to want to kiss him like that. On the cheek, maybe. Quick. Brief. Unabashedly and without any real consideration of thought. Unconsciously, really.

How nice, Kore thinks, how nice it must be to be able to feel and be felt so easily.

She thinks they’re getting there, though.

Kore lightly presses her leg against his side and Judge obligingly moves for her. Kore slowly settles down into the space he’s made, pushing aside some of his things to make more room for herself to settle comfortably.

Kore leans against him and he wordlessly raises his arm, allowing for her to choose how to arrange them even as his other hand zooms in on a particularly grainy screen grab of Corpus security on what looks like Europa.

She stretches her legs out, and Hala immediately trots over from where she and Valencia were playing with Midas to lie down on them. A warm, breathing blanket.

Kore wraps Judge’s arm across shoulder, letting it cross over her chest. Judge lifts his leg and bends it, resting more of his weight on his bent leg to make them more stable. He stretches out his other leg in a mirror of her and winces.

“Remind me how long you’ve been sitting,” Kore says, picking up one of the multiple model figures Judge makes when he isn’t sleeping and playing with it.

“A while?” Judge answers, “Hey, Kore - look at this. Doesn’t this Moa look _new_?”


	10. Chapter 10

“ _Kore!”_

Awareness comes to her slowly, sluggishly. Like her own _consciousness_ is thick and viscous, blotting between her eyes and nose and fingers, giving but also lazy and stifling at the same time. Kore groans - sensation is even slower to follow.

Kore fully expects herself to be moving - ready. It is not the first time she wakes up _in_ transference, but it is one of the more memorable times when it feels _strange_. Unnatural.

She has been knocked unconscious during transference. When she gets back to it, normally she’s already fine. She’s able to get up and move and continue her mission, or to at least get the hell out.

But this is different. Her warframe responds to her slowly, hesitant. It feels like - Kore struggles with the thoughts, the words, the form of it all.

It feels like her Rhino - but timid, somehow. More shy. Nervous. Uncertain. A steady bedrock underneath a swift current that makes her focus warily on her footing.

Vauban, she remembers, she was testing her Vauban frame.

With recognition comes more awareness - Judge’s voice through their private line calling her name in increasingly desperate and terrified tones.

“I’m here,” She croaks out, head pounding. She slowly turns Vauban’s head, taking in the Corpus cell - “ _Shit_.”

“Alad V released a new wave of Zanuka Hunters,” Judge explains, the soft almost undulating magenta glow of his Nova Prime’s helmet a stark contrast to the harsh blue and white lights in the ceiling.

Kore swears, hot, vicious, and unsatisfying.

A Zanuka - new prototype or no - should be _nothing_ to her.

Nova’s hands work on freeing Vauban from the restraints, “You aren’t used to your frame - I’ve never actually seen you in a Vauban before.”

“With good reason,” Kore replies. “Look at where it got me. _Shit fuck_ \- Hades - I was - “

Nova’s hand presses against Vauban’s chest, pushing the frame against the containment unit.

“I’m sorry,” Judge says softly, “They didn’t make it. The hostage. The Corpus caught them a little after you - after you.”

What Judge means is, after Kore slammed three extra clips of ammunition into the Lotus Agent’s hand, picked them up, and _threw_ them into a ventilation shaft Kore knew would lead to the outside as the Zanuka closed in on her. What Judge means is - after Kore did her fucking damned best, she still failed.

Kore’s stomach sours, her guts knot.

She had been so careful. She didn’t set off a single damn alarm, they were _so close_. If Kore could have just gotten them out of the building, if she could have just gotten them _outside of the facility_ \- running to her ship would have been nothing. Zanuka would never have caught her. The Corpus never would have killed the operative.

“Fuck,” Kore swears, throat closing - a blistering and dry heat that cracks her voice like the deserts of Mars.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Judge says, half-supporting her with his Nova as Vauban’s systems slowly come back online after they remove all the inhibitors on the frame.

Neither of them say - _you have never had the patience for the survival of others, anyway_.

Kore, feels herself bite her lip in her Orbiter. The hurt spills through her, hot and burning.

“I’m sorry,” Judge says softly, knocking their warframe’s heads together. “Kore, please. I’m sorry.”

Vauban jerks back from him, she is still unsteady but she’s good enough to stand, at least. She does not want Judge’s pity.

His attention, his trust, his time, yes. But never his pity.

Nova’s hand grasps Vauban’s wrist.

She hears Judge take in a breath to say something and then a voice - unfamiliar that makes Kore’s jaw seal itself closed.

“You have your girl?”

“Yes,” Judge says into what Kore belatedly realizes is a separate communications line - she hadn’t noticed that she was tapped into it. Judge must have opened a second channel and silently tuned her in. “You?”

“Almost. Talk to you soon.”

Kore’s Mars-dust mouth is empty and full at once. Kore wants to curl into herself and lick her wounds and her bruised pride. Kore also wants to burst out of here and prove that she is not something that requires saving.

“Weapons,” Kore says. She doubts that she’ll ever see her secondary again - it’s fine, she wasn’t particularly attached to it anyway. But she _does_ want her sword and shield back. _And_ her gun. It was one of the few primary weapons she actually can tolerate using.

Nova nods - “Right. I found them on the way here, actually.”

The Nova frame removes a pair of holsters and hands them to Vauban. The weight is reassuring. As Vauban puts them on, Judge takes in another breath -

“Kore, when I was mad at you earlier - I didn’t. I didn’t mean for you to do this. To go off on your own and - and do something you don’t like.”

“No,” Kore agrees, “I know that. But you did _mean_ for me to do something, Judge.”

She focuses on the dependable weight of the Aegis on Vauban’s arm, the comforting glow of it, and the focusing heft of the Boltor in her hands.

Vauban’s optics meet Nova’s.

“You hate how much I don’t care for the hostages, the people the Lotus is always rescuing. You can’t understand how I don’t care for defense missions - for rescues, for the distractions, for any of those. You don’t understand, you can’t understand. I don’t ask you to. I don’t need you to. I don’t even need you to accept any of that. I _know_ it’s wrong. I _know_ it’s my responsibility to care.”

Vauban’s hands tighten around the Boltor’s stock and barrel.

“I can’t,” She says, “Judge, I can’t do that. I can’t care for strangers like that. It isn’t in me. If it was, after -”

The words are hot and sour in her. The wrong kind of fizz-cola.

“ - after everything it isn’t, anymore, Judge.”

There should be more words, Kore thinks. There should be more words for why Kore can do all those things for Judge when she can’t do it for - for people she knows she should be defending since they can’t defend themselves.

There should be more words for why Kore resents the yoke of the word _Tenno_ , the memory and stamp and brand of being _Ballas’ Saryn_ , for the endless chain of duty and responsibility and purpose assigned to every single fucking Tenno in the entire system. There should be words for why she has been forced to place the security of others before her own and put her body and mind on the line for someone and something she never chose.

There should be words for why she does this all, willingly, for him.

Kore flinches when all the cameras and lights in the room burst, shattering with a shower of sparks around them.

Judge’s void energy - the same brilliant magenta as his Nova - lights up the room as he steps out of his frame and reaches his hands up to hold Vauban’s head in his hands.

“Kore,” Judge says, “Kore, I’m sorry. You’re right - I don’t understand. I can’t. But I don’t hate you. You have to know that, Kore. We don’t see everything the same, but _I do not hate you for this_. I was angry earlier, yes - angry at you, yes. But that doesn’t mean I want you to - to do _this_. To be something you can’t. You know I wouldn’t ask that of you.”

(And that was it, wasn’t it?

The reason why Kore used the Vauban frame she never really touched, the reason why Kore used her sword and shield and her crossbow, the reason why Kore did this -

Vauban inspires caution. Defense. Vauban and the frame’s particular skills asks of her to slow down, to use as little power as possible, to protect and guard rather than eliminate.

The crossbow is silent. The sword and shield are meant to hold back, not push through.

Kore did this, to _try_. Against everything in her - even her own bubbling resentment - )

“Kore, I’m sorry,” Judge repeats and Kore opens her mouth to say something - _something_ -

A static _scream_ bursts through the coms and they both flinch, recoiling -

“ _Not one fucking alarm set loose, and the second I get you out of that fucking cell you set them all off you - “_

_“Run, run, run, run, run!”_

“I guess she found Punk,” Judge says, wryly, stepping back into his frame - giving her a piercing _look_ that says that this conversation is paused, but not over.

“What’s a Punk?” Kore asks.

The doors to her containment cell hiss open and a blue streak dashes past, followed by a pink Trinity frame.

“That’s Punk,” Judge says, tugging her forward by Vauban’s wrist. “And the second one was Chic. He was also taken by the Zanuka Hunter - and when I was looking for your the Lotus told me his partner was looking for _him_ , so we teamed up to get you two together.”

“Punk?” Kore repeats, “ _Chic_?”

“You probably remember at least one of them,” Judge says, as they sprint after the blue and pink pair. “Punk is an Ember unit.”

“Not all Ember units know each other, Judge,” Kore sighs, “There were over nine hundred Ember frames that got deployed.” Granted most of those are repeats because of how many Ember frames had to be rebuilt and stationed in multiple zones for quick transference switches.

“And Chic is that Trinity unit we helped rescue in the Void that one time.”

Kore resists the urge to groan, “The loud one?”


	11. Chapter 11

Judge’s vision blurs around the edges and the hum of the Orbiter is a sound that’s in his bones, his his skull - the sound of space is a solid and tangible presence in his ears.

He forces his eyes to focus in on the screen in front of him. He’s close to something, he knows.

Whispers trail down the back of his neck, ghosts from a time Judge forcibly left behind. He wishes it could leave  _him_.

The ambient sounds of the Orbiter and all the things it must do to keep him alive, to keep him healthy and able, are familiar and routine.

Judge focuses on the bright light of the surveillance footage that he’s been looking over. There are pieces missing here, to finding out what it is that’s got the Corpus so riled up. There’s going to be an auction soon - and the only thing that could get those old men so excited and sanguine is Orokin technology.

The question is - is it a warframe? Is it a  _tenno_?

Is it something worse?

“Judge?” Kore’s voice rasps out. He turns around, neck stiff and looks at Kore.

Midas is curled up with her in her sleeping bag, the snoring Kubrow is lying on his back, paws flung up and soft little puppy snores coming from his mouth. Judge grins a little.

Kore lifts her head up, her short cropped pink hair messed up in a dozen different directions - her normally flat bangs have lifted off her face to reveal the full almost circle of green-blue Void scars.

Her multi-colored eyes are squinted at him, “Did you even sleep? What time is it?”

“Dunno,” Judge says, turning to look in the direction of the navigation panel and the large windows at the controls. Then he realizes that it wouldn’t help much.

The orbiter is in orbit. Time is measured in shadows and rotations.

“Judge, go to sleep,” Kore yawns, a jaw-cracking thing that makes Judge smile, a little regretful that she even woke up.

Kore’d just gotten back from two back-to-back two hour surveillance drops, and then a four hour patrol of Uranus.

She’d boarded his ship, threw down her sleeping bag, and went immediately into it, zipping the thing all the way up to her chin before Midas started to whine and paw and nudge at her head until she let him in. Valencia had trotted in after a few minutes later, dragging another blanket in her powerful jaws, half tossing it down on the floor next to Kore, sitting on it and turning around in a complex series of motions to tuck herself in.

Judge doesn’t remember when the last time he stood up was.

“I’m close to a break through, Kore,” Judge says, “Do you think I could get into this Corpus auction?”

“You've got  _hair_ ,” Kore groans, “There aren’t any Corpus with hair, Judge. They’re hairless rodents.”

“Shit,” Judge presses his thumb to the corner of his lip, “Wait - what if I wore a helmet?”

“You’re  _brown_ ,” Kore stresses, “The Corpus are so white that fresh snow looks dirty. And you’re too short. Even the withered husks that are the Corpus rich aren’t as scrawny as Tenno are.”

Judge turns around to tease that at least he’s still taller than her but Kore’s eyes are looking directly at him.

His heart abruptly stutters in his chest.

Kore’s eyes are violet and magenta.

That’s not Kore.

 

_That is not Kore -_

 

It smiles at him, winking. “Something wrong, partner?”

Judge gasps, legs lurching - but collapsing immediately underneath him again as he tries to backpedal away. His legs are useless and numb as the thing that’s pretending to be Kore sits up, sliding out of the sleeping bag -  _smiling_  -

His heart pounds in his chest and he feels the build up in his hands and arms and chest before he can even think it -

A blast of magenta void energy bursts out of him. Judge skids back on the floor, back hitting against his mod station and the thing that is Kore raises its arms, yelping as it crashes into the corner of his Orbiter behind the Sentinel charging station.

The thing that has Kore’s face crumples and Judge scrambles to stand.

This is a dream. It must be a dream. Isn’t it a dream?

Kore’s eyes were magenta - Kore’s eyes are yellow-green-pink, just like his are magenta-pink-purple. Kore’s eyes are not the color of his Void energy. Kore’s eyes are the colors of spring, Earth made new.

Judge tries to stand but his legs refuse to work.  _Is this a dream_? Is this the result of staying sitting down for so long, or is this something else -

Loud barking and Judge turns - another blast of energy erupts out of him as he holds his hands up to his face.

The hulking body of dream-Valencia crashes into his foundry, tumbling onto the control panel and view-pane.

Another dark figure in the corner of his vision, Judge turns, hands held up and he hears the whispers of the Void growing louder and louder -

He bites his lip but - but does he feel it? In this moment he can’t tell if he’s biting his lip and the room spins as he tries and fails to stand.

The sound of space, the sound of the Orbiter - the dull drone of machines and electricity fills his ears like cotton.

Midas' yaps sound so far away.

Judge turns, and the thing that was Kore is gone and there is nothing in the sleeping bag and fear and panic rise in him, building and swelling and undulating and -

“ _Judge!_ ”

He turns and it is the thing that is Kore and it throws something at his face -

He coughs, surprised as he inhales something that feels hot and warm and he blinks, startled, looking into spring eyes, Kore’s face is pale and blanched and she looks so small without her transference suit, so small and bright against the dark interior of his orbiter.

He breathes in, surprised and starts to cough and wheeze. It  _burns_. It’s hot - and -

“Judge, you’re awake,” Kore’s voice, closer. He wipes at his eyes, shoulders heaving - “Judge, you’re awake. It’s me. It’s me. It’s Kore.”

Judge vomits.

Kore’s hand is on his back, then, the back of his neck, pushing his head down as he struggles to breathe.

Midas sounds closer, now and when Judge’s vision clears he’s sitting back against his mod station, knees drawn up to his chest.

The Kubrow pup immediately runs up to him and squeezes into his arms, yapping confusedly. His grippy little paws snag into Judge’s shirt as the puppy plasters himself to Judge’s chest. Judge’s arms go around the pup automatically and he looks at Valencia who’s watching him, wary and crouched low to the ground.

“Kore,” he wheezes, turning to her. Her eyes are right. Those are the right eyes. “What - ?”

“Red flavor,” Kore says, holding up the empty canister.

“Red?”

“You can’t taste in transference,” Kore says, “Because our frames don’t have mouths. And you can’t taste in regular dreams, either.”

She sets the canister down and goes back to her sleeping bag, picking up Valencia’s blanket and she starts to clean up Judge’s sick.

His ears burn with shame and regret. He moves to help her but she shakes her head.

“I - I’m sorry - I “ Judge tries to find the words.

“You couldn’t tell,” She says, nodding, “I know. It's gotten worse, hasn’t it?”

Judge says nothing.

“Since Harrow,” She says.

Judge closes his eyes, “Midas please stop licking my face, that isn’t for you.”

The puppy whines as Judge pushes the pup’s face away from his.

“I put water next to you,” Kore says, “While you were out of it.”

Judge reaches down blindly, until he feels the familiar not-quite solidity of a water packet. He opens it eagerly.

“It's Rell,” Judge says, head hitting back against the mod station behind him. “I keep - I just keep thinking about him, Kore.”

Kore doesn’t say anything but he knows she’s listening.

“What if I turn out like that? Kore - what if I knew him? What if I could have saved him?”

“I’m sure you would have tried,” Kore replies.

Judge startles a little when he feels something large and warm brush against him. He opens his eyes and Valencia’s blunt nose is nudging his leg, golden eyes wary but concerned.

“Sorry,” He says, tentatively holding his hand out to her. Valencia nudges his hand softly, then turns around and curls her massive bulk against his side. He slowly leans against her, palm pressed against her large back, feeling her heat through his skin, and the feeling of her breathing.

“Kore, what if we could have helped Rell? Do you - do you remember him? I should remember him. Why didn’t I help?”

“You might not have been there at that moment,” Kore says, tossing the soiled blanket to the side, sitting across the Orbiter from him. “You can’t help that. It’s over, now. He’s dead. And it’s what’s best. We couldn’t have done anything to change that. We were cruel, Judge. We were cruel on that ship. We were children and we didn’t realize we were becoming something else.”

“Not all of us,” Judge protests.

“No,” Kore concedes, “I knew what I was becoming. But I  _was_  cruel, Judge. I was untouchable, you said it yourself.”

“I told you, I didn’t mean it like that - “

“Judge, I have always been looking out for myself and  _only myself_ ,” Kore cuts in, “I don’t remember Rell. I barely remember  _you_. I know what I should have done. I know what would have been morally right. But I also know that I would have done nothing to help him, or to hurt him. And that is cruelty, too.”

“That’s not true,” Judge protests.

Her eyes soften, minutely, “Judge. The only person I try to do things for is you. No one else.”

This is true, Judge mentally concedes. But it does not make Kore a bad person.

“Judge, you’re awake. You aren’t like Rell. You aren’t responsible for what happened to Rell,” Kore continues.

Judge and Kore sit in silence for a while. Judge trying to piece himself together, Kore waiting.

"Let me see your head,” Judge says. Kore doesn’t move, he beckons at her. “I know I hit you hard. I can see the dent I made in the ship.”

“It’s just a bump, Judge,” Kore says, slowly moving over to him, “I got my shield up in time.”

“In front of you, not behind,” Judge says, “Let me see it, Kore.”

Kore obligingly lets him inspect her head, and the back of her shoulders. Bruises, they’re going to be deep and painful, but he can’t see anything else.

“I’m sorry,” Judge repeats, this time to her.

“It's fine. I’ve had worse.”

“It really isn’t fine,” Judge replies. “Kore - what - what do you dream of?”

Kore’s eyes are deep and bright. He can feel her trying to see if he wants her to lie or not.

“Ballas,” Kore answers, voice soft, “I dream about Ballas. And flowers.”

Judge closes his eyes and Kore drags her sleeping bag over to him, sticking her legs into it as she leans her head against his shoulder.

Judge’s hand finds hers and he feels the hum of her Void energy against his.

He closes his eyes.

The Void whispers.


	12. Chapter 12

“I’m surprised you don’t use a Nyx,” Judge says as she helps him calibrate to his new frame, “Nyx is such a tough frame - everyone always says Nyx is like an Excalibur unit. Well rounded and sturdy.”

“Nyx’s powers and I don’t agree,” Kore replies, ducking when Judge overestimates his reach when he grabs at her, “Careful. She’s longer all around than Nova. I’m pretty sure she’s one of the tallest female-shaped frames.”

“Sorry, right - I’m just really used to Nova.”

“I know,” Kore says.

“What happened with your Nyx?” Judge asks as she steps back to let him test his kicks. She barely brings her arms up in time to block - “Sorry! Sorry! Her legs move differently. There’s more control?”

“Nyx is an excellent fighter,” Kore agrees, “But her mind powers - control over someone else? I just - even when I wasn’t awake, even when I was still in the Dream and didn’t know - something about that - it just. It chaffed against me.”

Kore tries to find the words, to pull them out of the compressed and dark spaces at the bottoms of her feet, the bottom of her imagined soul.

“Something inside of me recoiled at the feeling of connecting to another mind and pushing my will over theirs. Even if it was Grineer or Corpus. It felt wrong. It felt - sickening.”

Judge pauses as he’s rotating his ankle, “Maybe it was a side effect of the radiation damage?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Kore replies, “If it was I don’t think any Tenno would be able to use Nyx. How do you feel?”

“Good, normal. All transference read outs are fine and stable,” Judge replies, “Nothing wrong biologically speaking. And mentally? I feel okay. No strain, no trouble with maintaining transference. Nyx and I are alright. Not Nova levels of compatibility - yet - but it’s nothing like when I’m using Oberon. Oberon is just too - Oberon’s just too  _soft_.”

“Let’s just take it slow when we take Nyx to Earth,” Kore says, “Try the powers out on a few low level Grineer.”

Judge nods, “Sounds good. You going to switch out frames?”

“Well. Speaking of Oberon,” Kore muses, “I should probably use him again. He must be getting lonely and Oberon does best on Earth.”

-

“It’s been two entire moon cycles since I last saw Kore,” Judge says to Ugly. The phosphorescent Kavat ignores him in favor of trying to hack up its own lung in long, wet, disturbing sounds, “I’m assuming she isn’t dead. Because if she was dead then something would have come after me by now and Kore’s really the only thing keeping that from happening.”

Ugly succeeds in vomiting up something clear-ish gray, slimey, and undulating. The Kavat looks incredibly proud.

Judge steeples his fingers and watches his Kavat over his fingertips.

“Kore must be alive somewhere on Earth,” He says, “I’d wish her the best but honestly, she doesn’t need it.”

Ugly pokes at its own vomit-creation with a sharp claw.

“Should I go try and find her? Or do you think that’d drag her down? What if I go to try and find her and she comes back to try and find me and then we get stuck in a cycle like we did that one - okay, every other time - on Neptune? Your thoughts?”

Ugly starts to eat the undulating gray mass.

Midas, snoring by the incubator, wakes up with a sharp bark, rolls over, and goes back to sleep. A small little snot bubble forms around his nose. His little paws grip at empty air and his fat stubby limbs try to run as he goes back into a new dream of - presumably hunting and chasing something. Judge likes to imagine the puppy is hunting Grineer roller bombs. Just like Helba.

Judge feels a soft pang of sadness. He misses Helba.

She was such a good Kubrow.

“You’re right, no one stands a chance on Earth against Kore. She was like - one of the first Tenno ever deployed and tested on Earth. She’s probably having the time of her life. I’d just mess it up and slow her down if I went after her,” Judge nods his head.

Ugly starts to choke.

“Should we try and find her ship?” Judge asks after a few minutes of Midas’ puppy snores and Ugly fighting with vomit. “You don’t think she took her  _entire_  menagerie do you?”

Judge has a very sudden and incredibly vivid image of Kore - in her Saryn Prime frame, of course - rampaging through the infested and mutated forests of Earth with a trampling herd of Kubrow, Kavat, Sentinels, and her Helminth Charger.

“She’s going to tear Earth down before they ever rebuild it,” Judge says. It sounds like Kore, at least. “Do you think I should save Earth from Kore? I don’t think Earth is ready for that kind of spring.”

Ugly swallows the entirety of the gray mass, leaving only a slime trail on the Orbiter floor as evidence. Ugly growls and starts to slink away in the direction of the infested Helminth room.

Judge stands up, “I think I’m going to have to save Earth from Kore. Maybe Earth will be ready for her in another few thousand years.”

-

Judge glares at Kore, who looks entirely smug.

He gestures at the glowing and slightly moving pustule on the side of his Ash’s neck.

“You did that,” Judge says.

“Yup,” Kore replies, smirking. He turns his glare onto her Nidus frame, kneeling in a corner. “Now you drain it.”

“I don’t want a Helminth charger,” Judge says. “Handsome doesn’t even respect me.”

“That’s not my problem,” Kore says, “Well?”

“What?”

“Move Ash to the incubator. We’re going to drain it. You’re the one complaining that people are looking at you funny.”

Judge makes a face and looks away as Kore drains the pustule’s liquid into a small vial and adds it to the incubator.

Three days later, Judge stares at the Helminth charger - puppy? Kit? Spawn? that’s curled up in the Incubator.

“Your thoughts?” Kore asks as Judge slowly bends down and picks the spawn up, looking into its many glowing eyes.

“I’ve had this charger for about three days and this is my first time seeing it awake,” Judge says, cradling the Charger to his chest and looking at Kore, “But I know that if anything ever happened to it I would kill everyone and then myself for failing to protect it.  _Kore_.”

Kore grins, smug, “That’s what I thought.”


	13. Chapter 13

“Judge, are you busy?”

Kore’s voice sounds distorted and a little distant - as though she was calling out into the speaker. He can hear her working on something in the background.

“A little,” Judge replies. He’s been trying to reassemble some Moa parts he found. If he can get it to work again and somehow manage to disguise his tampering, maybe he could sneak it into one of the Corpus research facilities for some spying. Or sabotage. The plan only works if he can figure out how to get it to work again, though.

It doesn’t help that Ugly  _and_  Midas have been making off with parts he needs. Like - the legs.

Moa’s are about ninety percent legs. And five percent head. And five percent miscellaneous parts. But definitely ninety percent legs.

“Alright, never mind, I’ll figure this out myself.”

Judge immediately puts down the Moa head.

“No, no, I’m good. I’ll go over.”

Kore almost never asks for help and Judge isn’t about to turn her down when she does. Even if she didn’t ask for it in words.

Judge hurries over to the connection between their ships and crosses.

Valencia is sitting at the airlock, ears perked at attention. He gives her a tentative pat on the head and she blinks slowly, still at alert.

Valencia, he thinks, takes her job as a guard Kubrow very,  _very_  seriously.

All of Kore’s Kubrow take their jobs very seriously. It’s like a small elite army of Kubrow. Even if Isha can get a little hyperactive and over excited when he’s fetching body parts that no one asked for.

Judge makes his way to the main area of Kore’s Orbiter and puts his hands on his hips, eyebrows raising at the spectacle in front of him.

Kore is attempting to pull her Wyrm sentinel out of an air duct. She’s got both feet braced on the wall of her ship, and Isha is pulling at the back of her suit with his teeth.

Wyrm is making several high pitched sounds of distress, its optic sensor flashing as Kore grunts with effort to pull it free.

“Again?” Judge asks.

“Yes, again,” Kore says, “Help?”

Judge takes Isha’s place, arms wrapping around Kore’s middle as he digs his feet into the floor, feeling the soles of his boots squeaking against the Orbiter’s clean and smooth flooring. Isha’s teeth dig into the back of his hood and a few moments later Hajra trots over, looks at them, and then joins Isha in pulling Judge from behind.

“So this makes how many times your Wyrm has gotten stuck somewhere? The last time was an exposed pipe, wasn’t it?”

“Twelve this moon cycle,” Kore grunts.

Judge pulls her harder, grimacing at -

“What is Joy doing?”

Judge opens his eyes because the squeak of his boots is definitely not that loud or that - that  _piercing_.

Kore’s pink and yellow Kavat is dragging her claws down an alloy container, golden eyes looking directly at him.

“She likes to make that sound to piss people off,” Kore says, “She’s been doing it all day because Wyrm and Helios have been annoying her.”

“Helios?”

Kore jerks her head in the direction her navigation panel.

Judge turns his head, narrowly avoiding her head butting his chin as she makes a renewed effort to free her trapped sentinel, and sees Kore’s Helios.

“Still?”

“Every fucking time,” Kore confirms.

Kore’s Helios has an unfortunate tendency to get stuck trying to scan  _itself_  in any reflective surface. The problem is that her Helios has to start over mid-scan every time because the bright light of the scanner reflects back into its own optic sensor and blinds the thing. So it’s stuck permanently trying to scan itself until someone distracts it.

Judge sighs, wry amusement flickering in his chest as he focuses in on -

“Did you forget to disarm your Shade again?” He asks. Her Orbiter ceiling is dotted with fresh burns and dent marks.

“Listen, Judge, I’m not going to remove my Shade’s weaponry every single time I think it might enter sleep mode,” Kore replies, “I’ll just forget to put it back later.”

Judge glances around for her Shade, just in case -

The sentinel has a poor habit of firing off a few shots every time it wakes up from sleep mode and the last time Judge was around for it, he got shot in the ass. The sentinel was appropriately sorry about it, from what Judge could tell, but he’s not risking it again. He’s lucky it was only a bruise.

“Almost there,” Kore says and they all give one final tug.

Wyrm comes flying free, and Judge grunts as they all collapse into a pile.

Isha and Hajra cushion the fall but Kore is bones and angles and Judge grimaces.

Kore coos as she inspects her sentinel for injury. Wyrm wiggles in her hands before wrapping itself around her neck, small beeps and chirps of distress fading into low whines for comfort.

Judge gives the pair a fond look.

“Well, I guess the universe had to balance it all out somehow,” He muses.

“What?” Kore asks, attention mostly on her sentinel.

“If you were as powerful as you are, and all of your Kubrow and your Charger as - you know, efficient, as that,  _and_  you had capable sentinels it’d be unfair to the rest of us,” Judge says.

Kore glares at him, “My sentinels are perfectly capable. They just have -  _quirks_. Eccentricities. I mean, look at Ugly. And Chainsaw.”

“Chainsaw is  _perfect and wonderful_ ,” Judge replies immediately.

“Chainsaw cries and hides from Ugly,” Kore says, “Chainsaw is also afraid of Grineer and tries to hide behind you.”

“Not everyone can be like,” Judge waves his hand at where Kore’s Charger, Empress, is standing very still and staring out into space next to Helios, who’s making incredibly angry and frustrated high pitched screeching sounds as it tries to scan itself.

Kore shrugs a shoulder, “She learned it from Valencia.”

“You mean, Valencia, your tank with fur?”

Kore sniffs, still cuddling her Wyrm and petting its fleshy body as it does the machine equivalent of crying, “Valencia is a guard Kubrow. She takes her job very seriously.”

“All your Kubrow take their jobs very seriously and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Judge says. “But if your Kubrow and Kavat and Charger and all your sentinels took their jobs as seriously and as efficiently as you, I think that would be too much. In the words of the people form Old Earth, the universe had to nerf you by giving you sentinels that have -  _quirks_. Like your Djinn having a very bad startle reflex. Or your Carrier always getting tangled in Ugly’s tail.”

Judge pauses.

Thinks.

“Wait, is that on purpose? Did you train your Carrier to always catch my Kavat’s tail? Kore!”


	14. Chapter 14

“It’s  _huge_ ,” Judge says. “Also - what’s the opposite of claustrophobia? I’m having it. That’s unfair. I’m both claustrophobic  _and_  whatever it is that’s the opposite of it - I never realized Earth was so -  _big_.”

“Bears,” Kore breathes out softly, “No wonder bears were an apex predator here.”

  
“If they ever existed,” Judge reminds her. “I can’t believe it’s actually this big.”

“The forests make it seem so - normal sized,” Kore says, “And from space it looks - it just  _looks_.”

“But standing here it’s like - “ Judge waves a hand, “ _Woah_.”

“And it’s  _ours_ ,” Kore bounces a little on her feet, turning to beam at him. “Did you see the Lephantis from earlier?  _Judge._ ”

“That thing was three times the size of what you find in the Derelict,” Judge says, a small thrilling shudder of fear and adrenaline rushing through him at the  _memory_. “Void and stars, Kore, it was  _massive_. And it was just -  _going about its business_.”

“I’m going to fight it,” Kore says, “Not now. Not tomorrow. Definitely not alone. But I’m going to fight it eventually. Do you think there’ more than one?”

“With our luck?  _Yes_. Kore, don’t fight it.”

“Says  _you_. You tried to kill the miniature one on your own.”

“Are we calling the one we’ve known until now  _the miniature one_?” Judge raises his eyebrows at her. “It’s the one we knew first, shouldn’t we call the new one the big one?”

“It’s miniature,” Kore says. “And this one is massive and it’s intimidating and it reminded me of you.”

Judge double takes, “Of  _me_?”

Kore nods, “Only comes out for food and drink but otherwise stays hidden in a little nest of garbage. Did you see the hole that thing climbed out of? I can’t believe the Grineer haven’t even tried to take it down or capture it.”

“Kore, I’m pretty sure that the hole it climbed out of used to be a Grineer base before it eviscerated the entire site,” Judge says. He’s pretty sure he saw what could have possibly been a toxin injector. Or the remains of one.

“What else do you think is here?” Kore asks, “Bears?”

“Bears  _aren’t real_ ,” Judge repeats.

“Dragons, then,” Kore says - “We haven’t even seen the  _ocean_. I’m so excited! I can’t wait for the Lotus to give us full access.  _Do you think it will be soon_?”

“I feel like, for some reason I can’t explain, the second the Lotus gives the green light that Earth is now open season for Tenno to go crazy on the Grineer and Infested, I’m going to lose you,” Judge says, wryly. “I’ve lost to a planet.”

-

Chainsaw lets out a loud high pitched yelp, scrambles back on her hind quarters and does an immediate about face turning for Judge.

Judge sees it all happen in slow motion - whether it’s one of those dramatic things that seems to happen when something terrible is about to occur, or because his Mesa’s vision is just that good is debatable. But he sees Chainsaw turn for him and  _launch_. It’s an impressive charge that sends all the Grineer between her and him flying, but he’s pretty sure that wasn’t intentional on her part.

Judge grunts, feeling her impact as Mesa and Chainsaw tumble into the ground.

Kore is immediately laying down cover fire and her much more - uh.  _Battle Hardened_? Kore’s much more battle hardened Charger, Empress, elegantly and beautifully leaps over both him and Chainsaw, and sends several Grineer flying straight into the ground dead or just about there.

Chainsaw, meanwhile, is attempting to bury herself underneath Mesa, crying and whimpering the entire time.

Kore sighs, loud and only a little bit amused by this, into their intercom.

“So she’s like Ugly, then, is she?”

Mesa’s arms raise over Chainsaw’s quivering mass and Judge starts firing from his new position.

“Not all of us are as brave as you are, Kore,” Judge says. “Don’t tease.”

Empress finishes obliterating all the Grineer around him, and seeing as no one was stupid enough to approach the dark and ominous creature of efficient death, Empress takes it upon herself to bring them to her.

Judge grimaces as Empress’ long proboscis flies out and wraps around the ankle of an unfortunate sniper and drags her - roughly, fastly, and incredibly violently - over the ground to mauling range.

“It’s not even about bravery at this point, Judge,” Kore says, coming to a neat stop next to him, spinning Wu-kong’s iron staff before letting it collapse back into a more manageable size. “It’s about the fact that all of the things that are supposed to be for hunting things with you don’t actually help you hunt things. Ugly goes off and tries to choke to death on whatever it can get into its mouth. And I guess he shreds some things up along the way, but really it’s a fifty fifty split on who he helps at any given time. Midas is a puppy and should never even try to help you. And Chainsaw is…”

Kore trails off.

“Well. Chainsaw has an impressive retreat.”

“I appreciate you trying to be polite about it,” Judge says, petting Chainsaw’s quivering back. She refuses to let him up.

There’s no Grineer left aside from the one that Empress is finishing off.

They both turn to watch.

Empress daintily steps off the slack body, turns to them, faintly glowing tendrils moving in a very soothing ambient way, and starts to trot over.

Empress stops directly in front of Kore, sits down on her haunches, and clicks her mandibles twice.

Kore pets her head and the lights of Empress’ body seem to flicker with pleasure. She clicks her mandibles a few more times.

“Is Chainsaw going to let you up anytime soon?” Kore asks.

Judge makes another attempt at sitting up and Chainsaw starts to cry.

“I’ll come back for you when I’m done then,” Kore says, gesturing at Empress to stay, “You work on getting Chainsaw to let you at least leave when I’m done because we really don’t want to be here when the reactor goes off and collapses this place into dust.”

“I’ll try but I think at this point I’m smart enough not to make any promises.”


	15. Chapter 15

"We have a problem,” Judge says, staring at the blinking characters in front of him.

“Of course we do,” Kore mumbles. She’s golden and orange lights in the corner of his eye, floating idly with her sword drawn. “What’s the problem,  _now_?”

“I can’t read this,” Judge says, gesturing at the screen.

“How do you mean?” Kore asks, voice carefully level. “You mean you can’t crack it? Hades, I told you to make more ciphers and keep them in storage on your ship.”

“I hacked it fine,” Judge says shaking his head as he leans on the console, “I mean I can’t read what’s here. It’s in some sort of code - a new one. Everything is in code. Even the damn controls. It’s different. It must have happened after I killed one of the Queens.”

“You mean we can’t do anything?” Kore asks, Titania’s razor-flies fluttering irritably in their holsters on Titiania’s body, each of them out of synch with the other.

“I can’t plant my virus or my bugs because they’re in the old script,” Judge says, “They’ll notice them right away if I do it as is. I have to decode this and slip it in somehow.”

“So we came all the way here for nothing,” Kore sighs, “Excellent. Alright, let’s head to extraction. Get back in your frame, you make me so  _nervous_  when you aren’t in it.”

“And you make me nervous when you're in  _yours_ ,” Judge says, a quick smile at the corner of his mouth when Kore only does a mid-air twirl, a few of her razor-flies flying around her before quickly returning to their ports. “No, we don’t have to leave. The Grineer aren’t that smart. I can probably crack this - I’d just need some - “

“Time,” Kore finishes for him, “You just need some time.”

“Right,” Judge nods.

Which is unfortunate because the longer they stay here, the higher the chance that they’ll get discovered.

“Alright,” Kore nods, “I’ll buy you some time. I’m going to go as far away from here as possible and start making noise.”

“It’s too dangerous, the Gustrag Three are out,” Judge says, shaking his head, “We’ll have to figure something else out.”

Kore snorts, “So what if the Gustrag Three are out? I’m not the one who killed one of their Queens. They don’t give a shit about me. Besides, they’re willing to overlook me since I like to destroy Corpus slightly more often than I like to destroy them. They like to hedge bets on who I’m after. I know, sometimes I overhear it when I’m listening in on Grineer before I kill them. Anyway. I’m going to go and piss some Grineer off - or make them piss themselves. You let me know when your’e done and we’ll meet back on the way to the extraction point. Good? Good. Persephone, out.”

Kore zooms away before Judge can get a word in edgewise, cutting off communications as she goes.

Judge gapes after her. This is - this is an entirely new and unfamiliar situation.

“ _Persephone!_ ” He yells out just as the doors to the data vault hiss shut. And she’s gone. Just like that.

Judge turns to his Mesa frame, who only acknowledges him with a slight glimmer of her optic sensor in the slit between the many layers of bandages around her head.

“Did she just- ?” Judge asks his frame, knowing that Mesa won’t and can’t respond. He turns to his Helios who just idly flicks its lights on and off at him. “She did. She just - she just  _ran off._  Like that. She didn’t even ask me or anything. She just - she just  _went_.”

Judge stares at the direction Kore went, he can still see the glimmer of Titania’s energy in his mind’s eye.

“How could she - I mean. I guess? I guess this is fine?” Judge turns back towards the console and starts working, “I mean. Sure. Yeah. I mean.  _Okay,_ I can’t  _stop her_ , but I mean -  _seriously_? She’s just going to rush in like that?”

Helios makes a particular chirping sound.

“Yes, yes, I know - I’m one to talk, but  _I mean, come on_ ,” Judge says, as he begins to note the patterns. “And yes, I know she’s Persephone, she can take care of herself. But. I!  _Seriously?”_

Whatever Kore is doing must be working, because no Grineer patrols show up as Judge is working on taking their system apart and putting it back together with a few new helpful - for him, for them? Not so much - additions.

“Alright, done,” Judge says, breathing out slowly. The world around him swims into clearer focus as he blinks away the yellow-orange lights of the Grineer computer systems. He shakes his head, feeling his eyes sting and he looks away from the screens altogether. “Now, we have to find her.”

Kore is either stuck in some sort of communication blocking field, or she’s too distracted by taking Grineer apart in her own way to answer his coms request.

“How does Persephone do this when I do it? She always finds me - even when we aren’t on the same mission. She must have had a way to do it. Or is that just a  Persephone thing? Like - some sort of Saryn training? Or - or Ballas modifications?” Judge asks Helios and Mesa, again as if they could answer. Or if they even know the answer.

Mesa’s head turns slightly upwards and to the left just as something huge explodes. Even Judge can feel it vibrate through the soles of his feet.

“Oh,” Judge blinks, “Well. I guess that’s got to be her.”

He grins, “And Kore makes it sound so hard, going after me. This is  _easy_.”

Helios rolls its optic sensor at him.

Mesa turns her head slightly downward and away.

“What?” Judge asks as he gets back into Mesa. “It was easy! I mean, I’m a total wreck, and I definitely make more noise than that. There’s no way Kore has it harder when she’s going after me.”


	16. Chapter 16

Kore slowly rolls two blue ayatan stars between her fingers, watching the light play against her skin and listening to the sounds of them as they click against each other, muffled by her meat and her bone.

She conjures her own face in her mind’s eye and thinks.

“I’m going insane, Kore,” Judge says, voice rough as he paces up and down the length of his Orbiter. She can hear him quite well, even though he’s far away. Acoustics and such. “I keep - I turn around and I see  _this thing_  there, with my face smiling at me and sometimes I can’t even tell. It’s like I’m projecting or something and I’m not sure - is that me? Or am I me? Which one of us is me? Did I pop out of my body? If I turn around, will there be another one of me? Am I awake? Is this a dream?”

“We already know how to tell if we’re awake or not,” Kore says, eyes closed, “You can’t taste things. Or smell things. Apparently you can’t read, either.”

“Really?” She imagines him stopping his pacing, tilting his head, intrigued. “Where’d you find that one out?”

“The Lotus told me.”

Judge scoffs, “And what does the Lotus know?”

“She told me because she found that out from  _other_  Tenno who were having trouble outside the Dream,” Kore says. She can understand Judge’s frustration with the Lotus, she can understand his hesitance to trust her after everything she has hid from them. But the Lotus has been more forthright recently - if only because she’s been caught flat-footed too many times.

And recently the things that have been happening -

They’ve been beyond the Lotus’ scope.

Kore does not trust the Lotus, but for the lack of a better option - or for the lack of anything better to do - she’s willing to go along with her plans and directives. Unless when Judge says otherwise.

“We aren’t the only Tenno who suffer,” Kore reminds him, “We’re just the ones that matter to each other the most.”

His words, not hers.

Judge sighs.

“Alright, fine - I'm awake. But that doesn’t - that doesn’t help me with the rest of it.”

“You’re  _you_ , easy,” Kore says, opening her eyes when she feels eyes on her. She looks up at Ugly and raises an eyebrow.

Void, Ugly is a truly hideous Kavat. She loves him because she’s got no choice, she has a feeling Ugly feels the same way about her.

The Kavat bares its crooked teeth at her. She bares her own back.

Ugly’s ears flatten and he slinks away, glancing over his shoulder every few steps to sneer at her.

Kore watches the Kavat go and rolls her eyes. Dramatic shit.

“It isn’t that easy!” Judge replies, “I can’t - it’s so hard to -  _what if I’m the hallucination_? Isn’t there that old earth thing - I dreamed I was a butterfly and woke up but what if I’m a butterfly dreaming I’m a man? Something like that. More - elegant sounding or something.”

Kore could correct him. She won’t.

Ballas did not approve of the Tenno being  _educated_. She supposes most of the Orokin wouldn’t want their weapons being too smart. But Ballas couldn’t stand for anything ugly - none of the Orokin could - and a certain level of ignorance was therefore unacceptable.

Kore knows the classics by heart and by skin. She can sometimes still hear the automized voice reciting to her over and over and over again until she could repeat it by the muscle memory her tongue and her lungs.

She despises this as much as she loves it.

“Yes, it is,” Kore says, squeezing the stars together in her fist so that their edges dig into her palms, “You are you. There is no one else in this world who is like you, or the next, or the next one after. There is only ever going to be one of you. The others may  _look_  like you, but they are not you. Even if they look the same, have the same memories, know the same things as you -  _they are not you_.”

“How can you be so sure?” Judge’s voice draws closer as he comes closer to completing his circuit of his ship, “Kore, how can I know?”

“Because they don’t have your  _soul_ ,” Kore says, “You can’t clone a soul.”

“Kore, souls are just - things people believe in. You can’t clone them because they’re - they’re thought,” Judge sighs.

“No,” Kore squeezes her fist tighter, her own face in her mind’s eye. “They  _aren’t_. You are you are you are you. That’s it. Even if the others are real, they’re real in a different way. You are real in your own way. You do what you have to do. Believe that you are real or no one else will, Judge.”

“How can you be so calm about this?” Judge asks and she looks up, sees him round the corner next to the arsenal load out, “I tell you that I’m seeing these - these hallucinations of myself and you just come up with all of this advice? Do you - is this a thing? Is this a normal thing? Did the Lotus give you this talk?”

Judge’s eyes are wide and sleepless - not unusual.

“I thought we were past all the secrets,” He says, only a slight touch of bitterness.

Kore levels him a flat gaze, “No. I know all of this because I’m used to it.”

Judge blinks, tilts his head, mouth pulling into a frown. Kore releases the stars slowly and then squeezes them again, hard enough to hurt.

“But you - you’ve been having the negative reaction too? Since when? Why didn’t you tell me, when did they start?”

“No, I’m not,” Kore shakes her head, throwing the stars into Judge’s haphazard pile. They land and clink against each other, falling into the rest of the glowing blue. Identical to all the rest. “I’m used to it because I’ve killed my double before.”

She shrugs, wry smile on her face.

“Did you think Ballas and the rest of the Orokin were going to rely on the Tenno willingly? Ballas cloned me, cloned the Tenno in his -  _in his care_  - to see if he could replicate the Void’s effects, if he could make more of us.”

Judge stands very still, eyes focused on her in the way they normally focus on puzzles and riddles and problems to take apart.

Kore breathes in, the memory - buoyed by the fizz-cola that never seems to settle inside of her - is lighter than the rest. She’s not sure why.

“No," Judge says, voice very low, face very still.

He doesn’t want to believe her.

Kore tries to soften the words as much as she is able. So she nods, instead.

There is nothing in her that is soft, anymore.

“That can’t be true,” Judge says, “I - how did you - “

“I know that I am me because I am the only one who feels the way I do,” Kore says, “Because I believe that I am me. Because they had to test if the clones worked somehow and what better way than to fight the original? I won. I killed them. Because none of the clones could ever do what I could do.”

Kore lets the Void rise in her, a glimmer underneath her skin, as phosphorescent as Ugly is.

“None of the clones had the Void in them. And even if they did, Judge? They wouldn’t be me. Ballas can’t  _make_  me.  _I_  make me. I shape me. I am me. Just like  _you are you_.”

There’s disbelief and shock and horror and pity in Judge’s face.

Kore envies him, sometimes. She knows it’s wrong - she knows that Judge has his own scars, his own type of suffering. She sees it in him, on him, all the time. The chains of the war are still with him. Judge has his own pain.

But she envies him, that experience of war and pain. How different the Orokin and their war was for him. How - in her mind - gentle.

An experience of the war without the cloning, without the constant tests, without the eyes, without the  _performances_ , without the grooming and the endless tailoring and chaffing under the images placed on her by others. A war without the stifling hand on the neck and the orders whispered into the ear.

A war without namelessness.

Kore knows Judge has suffered. But in her heart, there is a large part of her that  _envies_  and  _desires_. To be left alone, to be untouched, to be secluded in the dark with her own self instead of a thousand other desires being pushed onto her.

“Judge,” Kore says, pushing those feelings down and away to ferment and build and shudder, “No matter what, even if it’s stronger than you or weaker than you, smarter or faster, it’s not you. The only way to know is to believe it yourself. It's not concrete and it’s going to be difficult at first. But it’s the only thing you can rely on.”


	17. Chapter 17

“It’s all connected, Kore!” Judge exclaims, gesturing at the several screens he has haphazardly and somewhat dangerously balanced over each other, connected by red string he’d fastened to them somehow.

Kore blinks, blearily, and tries to cut off the video feed. She raises her hand and tries to close it.

Judge stares at her before reaching out and putting his hand on hers.

“Kore,” He snaps his fingers at her, “Kore.  _Kore!_ ”

Kore groans, and continues to try and close the video feed.

“Kore, no - Kore -  _Kore_ , wake up, Kore. I’m not a video feed. You’re  _on my ship_.”

“Gross,” Kore slowly sits down, yawning and scrubbing her hands over her face. “Why am I on your ship when I could be sleeping?”

She shoves herself into the narrow space between a wall and the mod-screen, curling up - there are worse places to sleep, and yawns. “Wake me up when you’re done explaining.”

Judge hits the ground next to her foot with his palm, “No, Kore! I need you to be awake,  _Kore, listen to me!_  I have it! I see how it’s all connected now - “

“Judge, one of those pictures is just a close up of Clem,” Kore scrunches her closed further and tries to retreat deeper into the crevice, pulling her arms up to shield her face.

She hears Judge scramble back to look at his screens, he starts to mumble furiously under his breath at himself and then he comes back, poking her small toe with he tip of his finger. She immediately curls her toes up.

“Kore, Kore, Kore,  _Kore, Kore, Kore_.”

“Judge  _please_ ,” Kore groans. “You aren’t even coherent, either.”

“I can see  _everything_ ,” Judge breathes out, “It’s all there, I just - Kore listen! Kore, don't go to sleep there! It’s Ugly’s favorite vomit spot - “

Kore’s eyes fly open and she launches herself out of the space, tackling Judge as she scrambles out, quickly standing up and twisting around to check her back.

“You couldn’t have led with that?” Kore asks, “Quick, is there anything on me? Judge?  _Judge_?”

“You’re clean,” Judge says, looking her up and down, “Ugly must have eaten whatever was back there recently.  _Now_  will you listen to me?”

Kore glares at him, “No, I’m going back to  _my_  ship and I’m going back to sleep and if your theory still holds in five hours  _then_  you can explain it to me.”

“ _Five hours_?”

“Yes, Judge. Because you dragged me out of sleep I’m going to add  _more_  time onto my sleep schedule because I need to make up for my last twenty four hour drop cycle.”

“That’s not how a sleep debt works, Kore.”

“Like hell it doesn’t, go get some sleep, Judge.”

-

“This is Handsome,” Judge says and Kore stares at the Kavat. The Kavat stares back.

“That is a mistake,” Kore says and the Kavat sneers at her, its phosphorescent eyes and skin are - they’re actually hurting Kore’s eyes a little. Kore squints and has to look away. She puts her hand on Isha’s back and slowly rubs him until the Kubrow settles.

The stump of his tail continues to wag.

“Not food,” She tells the Kubrow who just looks between her and the Kavat, excited and ready to play.

“Rude,” Judge says, Nova frame kneeling down to embrace the Kavat.

The Kavat starts to make a very disturbing half-yowl building in its throat as its ears flick back against his skull and hackles raises.

“Should you be doing that?” Kore asks, wrapping Titania’s arms around Isha. She has Isha half in her arms and she’s ready to run in case things go sour.

She would leave Judge to his natural disasters in a heartbeat if her Kubrow were in danger.

Isha barks and the Kavat makes a rough hacking sound and throws up -

It’s not a hairball, because this Kavat has about zero hair.

All of them stare at this thing the Kavat has produced and presented to them.

She quickly puts her hand on Isha’s nose, and repeats, “ _Not. Food._ ”

Isha seems to be trying to backpedal away from the sticky and incredibly brightly colored substance.

The Kavat returns to making its half-yowl.

Kore picks Isha up and starts to float backwards.

“Where are you going?” Judge asks, Nova’s head tilting.

“Away from your disaster of nature,” Kore replies.

“Why are you carrying Isha?”

“Because I love him and I don’t want to lose him to your abomination,” Kore replies.

“Kore, Isha is like - five times as likely to kill all of us than Handsome is. I’m pretty sure that whatever anyone dishes out, Isha can handle,” Judge says, releasing Handsome and standing up.

Kore’s focus snaps to the Kavat that starts to prowl around the room in a very loose circle, low to the ground with its ears back.

“Isha is a good boy and a string bean gremlin,” Kore replies, “And that is not Handsome. That is  _Ugly_.”

The Kavat’s ears flick up at attention.

“Void and stars,” Kore breathes, “It even responds to the name.  _Ugly_. Ugly fuck off.”

The Kavat hisses and sprints up a wall and into the Grineer network of pipes.

“Shit,” Judge says, “I have to find that Kavat.  _Handsome is a baby!”_

“So is Isha!”

“You think all your Kubrow are babies!”

“Well, Isha is a baby! Look at him!” Kore holds the Kubrow out, long spindly legs waving in the air as the Kubrow barks, stumpy tail wagging enthusiastically now that Ugly is gone.

“If you took some muscle mass off of Valencia and added it to him they’d be balanced,” Judge admits, “But Isha’s been shot by bombs and walked it off.  _He isn’t a baby anymore_. Baby’s can’t get shot by bombards or set on fire and walk it off like it’s a sneeze.”

“Don’t listen to him, Isha, you’re my beautiful baby boy,” Kore whispers, “My baby boy with legs like little twigs and a skinny body. Stars bless you.”

“I wish you’d talk to me like that,” Judge says as he peers into the pipes Ugly shot itself into.

Kore mashes Titania’s face into Isha’s fur and the Kubrow starts to paw at the ground, excited to do  _anything_.

“If you were a Kubrow maybe I would,” Kore says.

Alarms start to go off.

“Now we know where to find Ugly,” Kore says, standing up, giving Isha one last pat on the head and scratch behind the ears before they go find this excuse for a Kavat.

“Handsome,” Judge stresses, “Their name is  _Handsome_.”


	18. Chapter 18

The moment the air-release locks to Kore’s Orbiter open and Judge steps foot onto her ship, Judge has to flatten himself against a wall because Valencia and Empress are charging him.

“Void, Void, Void,  _Kore what_?” He yelps but they move past him and tackle-pin Handsome to the middle of the bridge between their ships. Judge thinks it’s hardly necessary for both Valencia, the dog-shaped tank, and Empress the Infected-shaped nuke, to pin Handsome, Judge’s three or four moon-cycle old Kavat.

Kore leisurely comes into view, casual as you please, with Hala and her own Kavat, Joy, at her side - Helios and Taxon float just behind her, lingering with curiosity.

“What is this?” Judge asks as Kore walks past him onto the bridge and crouches down in front of his pinned Kavat.

“This,” Kore says as she lowers her face to be closer to Handsome’s, “Is a display of dominance.”

“A  _what_?”

“You heard me,” Kore says, “Ugly gets away with everything on your ship. I am not having that kind of crap going on in mine. You have to let them know who’s in charge, Judge. Ugly thinks you’re there for  _him_  -

“Possibly her.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure anymore. I thought Handsome was male but they might actually be female. It’s really hard to tell.”

“Stars,” Kore sighs, “Alright. Anyway. Ugly thinks you’re here for  _them_  when in reality  _they_  are only around because of you. You let them forget that. You let them walk all over you. I’m not having it on my Orbiter.”

“Kore,  _Handsome_  is a kitten.”

“ _Ugly_  has almost caused you to choke to death twice because they destroyed your air filtration system,” Kore says, “I’m not having it on  _my ship_.”

“So you have your two most powerful companions tackle my Kavat and pin them down?” Judge slowly walks over to her, mindful of Hala and Joy, who’s ears flick towards him, their attention focused on Kore and Handsome.

“Ugly," Kore says, crouched in front of Judge’s strangely silent Kavat. The phosphorescent Kavat is looking straight at her, ears pinned to their skull. “You are reluctantly welcome on my ship. Into my home. But if you fuck anything up - if there is so much as a  _scratch_  on a single  _bolt_ , I will eject you into space and possibly into the nearest fast-moving object before your Tenno can so much as sputter. I will erase you from my life so completely and utterly that the memory of your face will be scrubbed clean from all memories. You will no longer exist. Ever. It is, frankly, something that should be done anyway. But Judge is incredibly fond of you. And he is the only reason that your existence continues. He is also the only reason your existence began.”

Kore lowers her voice, “Do not mess with me,  _Kavat_ , I am watching you. Do we have an understanding?”

“Kore, Kavats can’t talk.”

Kore holds up a hand to him and shushes him.

“Do we have an understanding?”

Judge looks between Kavat and Tenno.

Kore holds up her closed fist and Valencia eases up pressure on the Kavat’s head and shoulders.

Handsome slowly puts out and raises a paw.

Kore takes the paw and shakes it.

“Good.” She nods. Empress and Valencia release the Kavat, who slinks past them and onto he ship with Joy following after, ears at alert, an almost pleased sway to her short tail.

“Unnecessary,” Judge says, watching his Kavat go.

“Just because  _you’re_  fine with dying in your sleep doesn’t mean I am,” Kore says, scratching Hala’s ears as she walks back onto her ship. “Come on, pitter patter, let’s go. We’ve got battle plans to go over and the sooner I get that Kavat back off my ship the better mood I’ll be in.”

-

“Do yours hurt?” Judge asks her as they lie down in the front of Kore’s orbiter, staring out into space. Neptune looks like a solid and incredibly hypnotizing spot of white-blue. He can almost hear the sound of the glacial wind and the crashing water in his ears.

“My what?” Kore asks, her foot lazily stroking Hala’s back as the Kubrow dozes at their feet.

Midas goes from trying to shove himself into Judge’s armpit, jumping up and down on Judge’s stomach, and then trying to bait one of Kore’s sentinels into play. Judge clicks his tongue and sharply whistles when he hears Midas get too close to messing with Djinn, who’s taken refuge by hiding above Kore’s mod table.

Midas barks and they both hear his paws clicking away as he retreats further into Kore’s ship in his quest to find more people to play with him.

“That Kubrow’s time clock is so messed up,” Kore says. “Anyway, my what hurts?”

“Your scars,” Judge asks, “I was wondering, since they’re so - “

He makes a loose circular gesture around his face, unsure of what words he’s actually going for here.

“So, present?”

“Obvious,” Kore says, “The word you are looking for is obvious. And no. My void scars don’t hurt. They’re just - there. I don’t remember ever noticing them. I don’t remember when they became part of me. I know that I wasn’t born with them, but I do not remember the feeling of them becoming me. One day I saw my reflection and they were there.”

Kore falls silent, “They have always been part of  _me_ , I think. Part of Kore. Part of Persephone.”

He hears Kore moving, and turns to see that she’s rolled onto her side, towards him.

His eyes trace the green-blue ridges of skin that curl around Kore’s right eye and spiral over her cheek. He cannot imagine or remember her face without it. Somehow, the thought of Kore without her signature spring of ivy unnerves him. It would no longer be Kore.

He imagines the left side of her face mirrored onto her right, untouched and unmarked. Unsettling.

Judge wonders if their void scars are like finger prints, not a single one among all the survivors of the Zariman the same as another in shape and texture and color and depth and dimensions.

Judge’s are hidden and not nearly as obvious.

“Do yours?” She asks, head pillowed on her folded arm, pink hair falling into her eyes, obscuring the small gold pieces on her forehead and temples.

Her eyes slide to the ridge of void scars above his right eye. The most obvious of them, but not nearly as obtrusive as Kore’s. Not nearly as stand out and bold. More insidious in its own way.

“Only when my mind goes faster than my blood,” Judge says, “Only when the Void is in me too deep for cutting off.”

Kore’s dark lips twitch and Judge slowly moves a hand between them, small finger outstretched. Kore takes the finger with her own, hooking their small fingers together. Her skin feels warm, like she’s been coated in gold tickling pollen. A fizzy feeling that makes Judge’s guts settle a little more.

“It is a hurt that you get used to and can forget,” Judge says, “Background noise.”

“What noisy lives we lead, considering sound can’t travel in a vacuum,” Kore muses.

“No seasons in space, either, and yet here you are.”

“And here  _we_  are,” Kore corrects, eyes closing, “And here we are.”


	19. Chapter 19

Judge thinks that the Void has definitely fucked them up. Some more than others. Judge thinks that the Void took a ship of children - albeit the children of scientists and soldiers, and everything that means - and turned them into flesh-sculpted bombs. The Orokin then took those flesh-shaped bombs and molded them, sculpted them, tailored them, to go off on people who were not  _them_.

The Void, and the Orokin, have messed them up in so many ways.

One of those ways is that Judge sees it. He  _sees it_.

He sees it the instant  _Kore_  sees it. He sees  _Kore_  seeing it. Judge, from all the way over here in this dim lighting, sees the way Kore’s eyes go  _round_. He sees the way her pupils dilate a ridiculous amount and the way her mouth slightly falls open and he can hear the slight intake of her breath.

Judge sees it when Kore’s eyes and face go round and soft in a way he’s never seen before when they weren’t in the presence of some sort of new and deadly weapon.

“No, it’s - it’s disturbing,” Judge says. “No. It’s - it’s - it’s just.  _It’s disturbing_.”

“Is it?” Kore breathes, fascinated by the mass of - brown. It’s some sort of large quadrupedal mass of brown fur and teeth. It’s hulking and massive and its entire body moves with a gravity Judge has never seen before. It doesn’t move like an Infested - the have a sort of lumbering, jerking gait. And their bodies  _writhe_  and shiver and undulate. Judge hasn’t seen anything else of this organic size.

Corpus, of course, have things this big but those are machines and have a very clean and easily understandable way of moving.

This?

This is - it’s -

“No,” Judge says.

“I can’t have it?” Kore whispers, face pulling down into something Judge can only describe as  _sad_  and  _bratty_. She turns away from the  _thing_  to pout at him. An actual hand to Void  _pout_. Judge has slipped into a parallel dimension. He must have.

Also -

Since when did Kore care if Judge said no? Since when did Kore put Judge in charge of her life choices?

“No. You can’t have it. For one thing it's huge and won’t even fit on your ship - “

Kore grabs his arm, strong hands squeezing hard as she shakes him, eyes widening further as she stares at something. Judge turns and sees - little ones. Little ones in the same general vein as the big one, but littler.

“Void and stars,” Judge whimpers as Kore’s mouth splits into the widest smile he’s seen this side of a fire-fight with Grineer Executioners.

“There’s three of them,” Kore bounces a little, “Stay here and keep tabs on them I’m going to get my Oberon.”

“We don’t even know what they are! They could be  _dragons_  for all we know!” Judge complains as Kore quickly scuttles off into the forest to where they parked their retrieval ships.

The larger brown mass’ ears suddenly flick and it turns its stout, wide face to look directly at him.

Judge’s stomach drops out of his body.

“Kore?”

It’s teeth - it’s  _fangs_  - are  _huge_. Judge’s vision focuses on them for a second before the whole scene pans out around him.

The two little versions of the big one have run to climb up a tree.

The big one has reared up on its hind legs and it is -  _oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy._  It’s uh. It’s massive. It is - it is way beyond massive.

It’s like twice the size of Atlas massive.

“Kore?” Judge repeats, slowly easing back onto the balls of his feet and bracing to  _fucking run for it_. Hell, Void jump if he has to. “Kore don't come back here.”

“I’m getting it.”

“ _Kore it’s going to kill me_.”

“Don’t hurt it! Judge! Don’t you dare hurt it! If even a single hair follicle on any of them is so much as  _singed_  - “

“Kore,  _I’m going to get mauled by an unknown Earth predator!_ ”

“You’re a Tenno, Judge,  _hold it off_.”

-

“I don’t understand the seemingly universal fascination with Clem,” Kore announces through their private channel as they walk through Earth’s Strata Relay. Judge’s head is still spinning with dealing with Suda and Simaris. Both Cephalon are more alike than they care to be told, and they’d been throwing thinly veiled passive aggressive jabs at each other using him as a messenger for the better part of two hours.

“What?”

“I was in the Steel Meridian offices,” Kore says, “And there was a huge crowd around Clem. I gave up on trying to turn in my insignias to the proper station and dumped them on the nearest Meridian member to process for me.”

Judge imagines Kore in the incredibly menacing and ominous Nekros of hers losing her patience and dumping all of that on a poor low ranked Meridian officer. He decides that this image is incredibly entertaining considering that every time he walks  _past_  the Steel Meridian outposts they just laugh at him.

It’s his proximity to Kore, he knows. They think he's funny for - being with? Befriending? Generally hanging around? Kore.

He probably shouldn’t enjoy Kore giving people grief, but they make fun of him  _all the time_ , so…

“They weren’t even giving him insignias,” Kore sneers, tapping the long fingers of Nekros’ frame against a lean thigh, “It’s so annoying. What’s with everyone? Why is Clem so special?”

Judge shrugs, “He’s a defector?”

“We know tons of defectors. We save the lives of defectors. Defectors work with the Lotus and with the Steel Meridian and with the Arbiters and the Red Veil and everyone in between. I don’t see anyone fawning over  _them. Why can’t they crowd somewhere less important to syndicate functions?_ ”

“Calm down,” Judge says, dispersing some of Nekros’ vibrant red energy that leaks out of her hands, “You’re going to get us kicked out.”

“I will not,” Kore huffs, shaking Nekros’ hands a little. “How were things with the Cephalons?”

“Passive aggressive and stressful,” Judge replies, “Somewhere in there I think one of them made a request for something but I’d have to go over my recordings to make sure. Honestly, I think I just zoned out for two hours.”


	20. Chapter 20

Teshin pauses, hesitates, as Hades rushes to meet his partner, Persephone at the doors to the training room.

The pale colored Tenno walks in slowly, the doors behind her hissing shut and closing on the white and red figure of her warframe.

Teshin hears Hades talking, excited - stumbling over words - hands gesturing as he explains to her the things he has been practicing here, with Teshin, the things that he has learned and gathered and found out about the other Tenno who have slowly been learning to harness the powers of the Void as they should have been, without the Orokin to control them.

He lingers away from them, watching.

Persephone does not trust him. He has not given her a reason to, and even before this Persephone was distant. She has never competed in Conclave, never really cared for the games the other Tenno have taken to to keep their skills sharp. Without their Orokin and their savage mockery of play, the Tenno fall back onto softened versions of what they were taught to bond and coordinate with one another.

He had known of Persephone long before she woke. Executor Ballas and his squadrons of Saryns were well known for their brutal and efficient reclamation of Earth, and their frightening ability to pierce through enemy lines. He may not have known her, specifically - no one, then, ever really  _knew_  a Tenno - but he knew  _of_  her.

She is a strong and well trained Tenno, but there is still much for her to learn. He is  _uneasy_  with the thought of her out in the system without proper guidance, without proper understanding of her powers and her capabilities.

Hades, himself, is only just learning control. Students have no place being teachers, not at this level of newness, not at this level of uncertainty.

“Hang on,” Hades says, weight resting on the back of his heels - Teshin feels the Tenno gathering energy for a jump - “Let me just, I’ll get some training gear and I’ll show you. Wait there, Kore, I’ll be right back.”

And then Hades jumps, flashes of magenta as he teleports across the room in three quick blinks. Gone.

Teshin turns his gaze back onto Persephone, who remains exactly where Hades left her.

She is not looking at him. She is looking around the training room with the sort of interest you would ascribe a large beast examining a cage it knows cannot hold it. A temporary place to exist until it no longer pleases.

It is a pointed gesture.

The Saryns would have learned all of the little tricks of the games the Orokin played with each other. He imagines that Persephone, directly underneath Ballas’ nose, would have learned them quite well.

“Persephone,” Teshin says, not moving closer, “You are always welcome to join us. There are others who are beginning to learn, as well. You would not be out of place.”

“No," Persephone says, and then a beat too late - too purposefully present in the light and clipped way she continues, “Thank you.”

“A place to safely practice the use of the powers of the Void, as well as a place to confer with your fellow Awakened Tenno in safety is not an experience to turn away from lightly,” Teshin says, carefully.

“No, it isn’t,” Persephone replies, eyes scanning the room and the evidence of the other Tenno who have been here. The scorch marks, the footprints, the freshly pitted rocks, the jagged and glass-like sheen where some have been cut. “I have my own ways, my own places. I imagine it is not that much different than here.”

“As you say, I imagine the key difference is that I am not there,” He muses as Persephone’s eyes slowly slide to him, glowing from the shadows just out of reach of the training room’s main lights.

“Yes, and some of us prefer that way,” Persephone’s voice is very soft, and very daring.

“I know I have given you no reason to trust me, Persephone, but you must know that my previous actions were not of my own will. We are alike in this, you and I,” Teshin says and Persephone’s lips curl up into a sneer.

“We are nothing alike,  _Dax_ ,” Persephone’s words are sharp and clean, hot with an anger and hate that surprises him. From what he had seen of her, heard of her, Persephone's anger and her passions were focused, honed, compressed, and reserved for the killing blow. “I - and others like me - do not trust you. I do not want to be taught by you. I do not want you to preach at me, to look at me as though you are  _better_.”

Persephone’s eyes glimmer, and he is reminded of the coliseum beasts before they left the dark tunnels to enter the ring.

“Do you know the difference between us, Dax?” Persephone asks, “Warframes - they do not have mouths. A weapon does not need a mouth, a voice. The Orokin could have made us look like ourselves, like people. No. Instead we are always highlighted as other in our designs - strange proportions, strange faces, attachments, always something to mark us as different. The facsimile of faces, but wrong, painted on and rendered with artistic intent.”

Persephone is articulate, Teshin shouldn’t be surprised.

“But no mouths, Teshin, no voices. And what of you?” Persephone says softly, “Do you know why you are different, Teshin?”

“Tell me, Persephone.”

"Because they let you keep your mouth. Your eyes, your ears - hidden from view. Made lesser with the hiding of your identity and - “ Persephone cocks her head, listening to something, she laughs, a bright sound.

“And?”

“My Cephalon says to hide your weakness,” She says, “But that is beside the point. Do you know why you get to keep your mouth, Dax?”

“No.”

“Because you are not a weapon, Dax. You are a  _dog_ ," Persephone hisses, “A dog to hunt and fetch and bay for the Orokin’s pleasure. If you have no mouth, how are you to cry their praise? How are you to announce their glory? How are you to speak for them in the way they love? How are you to beg and ask permission? For us? For the true weapons? They sealed us up - no mouth, no eyes, no ears aside from the ones we made for ourselves in our heads - and sent us away. We weren’t meant to bring our kills back. We were meant to die out there in space with them.”

When Persephone smiles it is a glowing thing, “Even now you long for the Orokin, for their gold and their pomp and their glory. You loathe the Lotus and what she has done, robbing you of your masters, robbing you of your false glory under false gods.”

“You know nothing of me,” Teshin says. The words of an empty child like Persephone cannot hurt him. What would she know?

“I know that you think that the Lotus fooled me and many of the Tenno into regicide,” Persephone replies, “I know that you think the downfall of the Orokin is a shame, a waste, a tragedy. I know that you think you carry on their legacy. I know that I don’t trust or like you, Teshin. So you stay right where you are, and I’ll stay where I am. And we’ll talk no more of it.”

“And what of your partner, Hades?”

“What of him?”

“Have you told him of your opinions of me?”

“No,” Persephone tilts her head, “I don't need to. He already knows I don’t like you. The why isn’t important.”

“Kore!” A brilliant burst of magenta and Hades is running up to her, carrying training pads and dulled swords, “Put these on, I want to show you - “

“Cephalon Suda has been waiting for you for almost two hours,” Persephone says, “Show me later before she demotes you for tardiness.”

Hades curses, “Why didn’t you tell me that first, Kore?  _Void_  - Teshin, I’m sorry, I’ll put these here, please put it back or - just use it for the next group of Tenno? Come on, Kore.”

Hades rushes past Persephone, tossing Teshin a wave over his shoulder as Persephone turns - a step that Teshin remembers from a golden and glittering age, Executor Ballas flanked by his Saryns - and follows a neat half step behind her partner.

The doors to the training room open to reveal the red and gold Saryn standing next to the black and magenta Mesa.

They close over Persephone’s tiger eyes.


	21. Chapter 21

“Do you like green? Blue? Red?” Operator asks and Ordis watches her cycle through the preview screens for the Orbiter’s new interior design, “Black? White?”

Ordis has no opinion on what the Orbiter looks like, he’s fine with all colors. Though if pressed to pick one, he thinks that white and black showcase his Operator very nicely and compliment her own personal color choices quite well.

“Ordis will be quite pleased with whatever the Operator chooses,” Ordis says, and he means it entirely. It isn’t very often that his Operator changes things around the insides of the ship - mostly she sticks to redesigning her warframe’s appearances for maximum authority and intimidation effects. She is very, very good at it. Ordis is not sure if this is something inherently his Operator or something Orokin instilled.

He thinks that perhaps one cannot spend as much time around the Orokin, in such close proximity, as his Operator has, and  _not_  picked up something about appearances and perceptions.

“Alright, and I’ll be really happy with whatever  _you_  want  _yourself_  to look like,” his Operator says. Such generosity.

Whatever Executor Ballas’ cruel and sadistic intentions in binding Ordis to his Operator are washed away completely by how hard his Operator has worked to fight against every cruel imprint Ballas has left on her. She is  _kind_  and  _considerate_  and  _compassionate_.

“This ship is  _you, Ordis_ ,” his Operator sighs, running a hand through her hair, walking over to drop down in the abandoned specter’s lap, arranging its arms around herself like she would with one of her warframes, and leaning back frowning at the hologram in front of her, “You should decide what it looks like, not me.”

“Ordis thinks that all of the colors the Operator has chosen for him previously are incredibly pleasant.”

“You once said my Excalibur made your eyes  _bleed_.”

“Ordis doesn’t recall. Ordis also doesn’t have eyes.”

“Sensors, then. I distinctly remember it, though.”

Ordis does, too, but in his defense she had decided to try coloring her Excalibur unit to look like a watermelon from some old Earth files she had found. It wasn’t exactly  _unpleasant_ to look at, but it did make Ordis’ sensors flicker a bit with -

Well.

“Ordis doesn’t recall this, Operator, perhaps you dreamed it.”

Operator rolls her eyes.

“Seriously, Ordis. What do you like?”

“Ordis likes what the Operator likes,” Ordis answers. Ordis, as Ordin Karras, did not have any particular opinions on interior design. Most of Ordis’ opinions are reserved for his Operator’s battle tactics and methodology for arming herself for battle. As well as the Operator’s chosen targets. Everything else is really just icing on the proverbial cake. “Perhaps the Operator should ask Tenno Judge for assistance in this matter?”

“What does he have to do with anything?” Kore asks, “He’s not  _you_.”

“Operator, you have often remarked on how you approve of Tenno Judge’s choices in the designing of his warframes and their color schemes. Perhaps Ordis can take some hints?”

“Only sometimes,” Operator says, “I’ll ask him later.”

Ordis hesitates - Tenno Judge has not been on the orbiter in some time. Ordis had almost grown used to being linked to his orbiter, and having Cephalon Scylla so close that he could  _feel_  her data signals touching his. He was beginning to think that the bridge anchoring their main ships would become a permanent installation.

“Is there - a problem with Tenno Judge, Operator?” Ordis asks, unsure of how to broach the subject. He does not think that his Operator and Tenno Judge are in  _that_  sort of relationship…possibly. His Operator hasn’t physically aged enough for those sort of hormones and thoughts. But perhaps - ?

“No, why?” Operator asks, blinking. “Things are fine.”

“Tenno Judge has not been aboard in some time,” Ordis says, “Was he - mad about what Operator did on Earth? To Ordis?”

“A bit, but he got over it,” Operator shrugs, nestling in against the specter’s body, fiddling around with the hologram display some more and frowning over a shade of green before switching it back to white, “He yelled. I yelled. He started to cry. I almost started to cry. I think that’s the part where you stepped in? You might have caught that last part.”

“Operator’s biometrics were rising steadily, Ordis thought you were in danger!”

“I was irritated and embarrassed, but thanks for checking in. Anyway, after you tapped in he turned red for a really weird reason and started mumbling and then ran away. We’re good now, he apologized for getting mad and I said that I’m sorry for hurting him and scaring him like that.”

“Oh…Ordis sees,” Ordis says, “But he has not been around recently.”

“We’ve meet for drops all the time.”

“He has not been aboard recently.”

Operator blinks, tilting her head and thinking this over.

“Huh.”

“Does Ordis make Tenno Judge uncomfortable?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. I’ll ask him, next time. I mean, I’ve been on his ship a few times since we went to Earth together,” Operator frowns, “I didn’t notice anything weird. He didn’t mention you or anything. I mean - he never did  _before_ , either.”

“But things are different, now,” Ordis says.

Ordis has been very careful with how he is perceived in the Weave, slowly transitioning his data between the old Ordis and the new one, lest one of the more  _hostile_  Cephalon realize it and call for his purging or some other sort of action against him.

Ordis is fairly certain Cephalons Suda and Simaris would try to protect him though. Either out of curiosity or for their deep respect and love for his Operator and her service to their causes.

“Yes,” Operator says, voice soft before she sits up again, throwing out the hologram so that it’s larger, “So. Different things, different appearance. Just - how about you tell me which colors you  _don’t_  like?”

Ordis sighs.

“If you don’t pick, I’ll let the Kubrow pick instead,” Operator says, “And do you really want your interior hull to be colored by color-blind Kubrow, Ordis? Do you?”

“ _No_ ,” Ordis says immediately, “No, Operator, I do  _not_. Operator wouldn’t! Operator wouldn’t do that to Ordis!”

 

“Only if you don’t start giving me a general direction to go in,” Operator says, “Come on, Ordis. If you can form opinions on poetry you can form opinions on color schemes.”


	22. Chapter 22

“What,” Kore’s voice is a healthy mixture of skeptical, confounded, and resigned. Judge also gives her that it is all entirely well earned, considering the fact that there’s a giant glowing  _urn_  secured to his Mag’s back. There’s no real question or inflection to Kore’s voice. Just -  _what_.

Judge doesn’t begrudge her any of that.

He grimaces, knows that she’ll somehow  _sense_  his facial expression through their audio only communication link, and wills her not to ask any further questions, “It’s a long story.”

Kore’s silence stretches into uncomfortable before she sighs and says, “I’m guessing there’s no hope of you making a short story.”

“Not really.”

“Is it something stupid?”

“Define stupid.”

“Is it going to kill you?”

“No more than anything else I’ve done before.”

“Is this on the same level as  _killing the Grineer Elder Queen_  stupid?”

“Definitely not… _yet_.”

Kore’s channel cuts off and he guesses that she’s swearing at him. About thirty seconds later her channel’s audio turns back on and she says, “Alright. Fine. I’ll take it. Let’s go get this over with before it gets to the  _yet_  part.”

“Thank you for not questioning it further,” Judge says.

“Something tells me I’m going to regret it.”

Fifteen minutes later Kore’s  _what_  is no longer a statement but a question shouted out to the world at large - or at least, their com’s channel at large, which is just Judge and their Cephalons.

“ _What in the name of the Void, Judge_?” Kore yells, “ _Did that thing just suck in the - the life-force of this bursa?_ ”

“Bursas are machines, Kore, they don’t have a life force,” Judge says and Kore’s Excalibur throws his arms up. Judge ducks the sword in Excalibur’s hand and keeps his mouth shut about her waving her sword around like that. It probably would not help. “But yes, it did just do that. Yes, it’s done that before. Yes, that’s - from what I can tell, normal. Yes, that’s also sort of why I have it latched to my back like this. No, it’s probably not dangerous.”

“You’ve brought the soul-sucking jar around  _before_?” Kore asks, “You  _know all these answers?_ ”

“Yes?”

“ _Judge,_ ” Kore groans.

“Please don’t ask any questions about it.”

Kore’s feed is nothing but static. Angry, judgmental static.

By the time it clears, Judge’s jar has sucked up the life force - he really doesn’t know what it’s gathering because  _machines do not have souls_. Especially not  _Corpus_  machines. Judge refuses to give them that. The _Corpus_. He’s pretty sure if the Corpus ever had souls they sold it to whoever in some sort of bid war for credits or bonds or whatever. - of two more bursas, courtesy of Kore venting her anger out on them with her bare Excalibur hands and blades.

It’s terrifying, really.

“Okay,” Kore says, sounding a little out of breath, “Alright. I won’t ask any questions. Promise me that this is as weird and disturbing as it gets.”

“Um.”

“ _Promise me, Judge._  Please.  _Please?_ ”

“ _Um?_ ”

Kore groans, jamming her sword into a sparking Opsrey, sitting down on the wreckage of a Moa, and puts Excalibur’s head in hands, “It’s like you want me to die. It’s like you actually  _want me to die, Judge_. I saved your  _life_. I saved your life  _hundreds of times over_. I was there for you when you _woke from cryo and didn’t know left from right_. Why are you doing this to me?”

“Its for science,” Judge says instantly and Kore groans even louder, throwing Excalibur’s head back and slouching off of the Moa onto the floor.

Judge shoots a camera before it’s sensors can reach her.

“What do you have to do for science,  _now_?” Kore asks after a beat.

He really doesn’t deserve her.

“I have to fill the jar with - stuff.” It isn’t life force. It can’t be life force.

“Stuff,” Kore repeats, turning Excalibur’s head towards him.

“Stuff,” Judge nods Mag’s head and holds out her hand. “Help me get stuff?”

Excalibur clasps Mag’s arm and sits up, standing and getting Kore’s sword once more.

“For science, I guess,” Kore mumbles, frame lighting up with energy as they head into the next room, “As long as we’re fucking with the Corpus it can’t be that bad, right?”

-

“This is going to hurt,” Kore says and Judge doesn’t have time to give her the look that she should know is coming.

“Um?” He doesn't even have time to gesture outward at the mass of Infected swarming towards them, the howl of a Juggernaught literally shaking the metal corridors that are partway crushed under the weight of Infected biomasses. The heat rising off the diseased flesh is incredibly uncomfortable. “ _Obviously?”_

“I’m excited,” Kore says and Judge thinks that is also incredibly obvious. “But I think we’re also incredibly under equipped and that is concerning.”

“Definitely,” Judge says. “Should we run for it?”

He can just imagine the look of conflicted desire on her face. To stay and fight ad have fun slaughtering mindless Infested but also risk serious injury because of how deeply unprepared they are for this level of Infestation? Or to retreat so they can come back later with proper equipment?

“Maybe we can handle it,” Kore says.

“So…stay?”

Judge ducks and rolls in time to avoid a bomb of sludge and slime.

It eats straight through a wall.

Kore turns her Trinity’s head to look at it. And then at him. And then at the hoard that’s slowly squeezing its way through the hallway, flickering lights and all.

“I’m coming back for you,” Kore says at the Infested, as if they could hear and understand the true weight of that promise. “ _And then there will be none of you left_.”

“I’m sure they appreciate that, Kore,” Judge says. “Let’s  _go_.”

“I should never leave my Saryn ever,” Kore says as they start running for the nearest exit point they can jump out of and hail their Arching units from.

“This does seem to happen whenever we’re attempting to take things easy and try new tactics,” Judge agrees.

“We should never try anything new.”

“Affirmative,” Judge says, ducking as a metal beam collapses and makes way to a bright red pulsating growth, “Definitely yes.”


	23. Chapter 23

_Kore_ , Judge’s mind races as he pushes Nova forward,  _Kore_.

His heart pounds in his real flesh and blood chest and Nova’s energy is a crackling and splintering haze around him as he pushes through Moas, Ospreys, and Corpus crewmen.

Kore is somewhere on this ship. Kore’s warframe is somewhere on this ship. His partner is somewhere on this ship and she is hurt, or about to be hurt, or -  _Void_  - about to be destroyed. Torn apart. Cut to pieces.

Auctioned off by  _Alad V_. In pieces _._

His energy crashes against two Ospreys causing them to explode in a shower of sparks and heat that Nova pushes through. Behind him a pink Trinity run by a Tenno who told him to call her Chic casts out a line of energy towards him.

Judge focuses on trying to latch onto Kore’s signal. Somewhere here - even if she’s not conscious, there should be  _something_. Anything. A trace of her.

A trace of the blue-green-gold that’s like pollen from Earth buzzing on the tongue, a strand - a whisper, a hair, the faintest trail or thin new and fragile root or offshoot of her lingering, persisting, fading even. It’s here on this ship, somewhere.

All the Zanuka hunters that the Lotus was able to track with Alad’s most recent Tenno capture spree came here. There’s no reason that Judge can think of that would suggest that the Zanukas returned to multiple locations with the warframes they captured and marked.

“Do you have yours?” Chic asks through their Comm-link and Judge breathes out, “Not yet, you?”

“Faint, but inconsistent, like he was being moved around,” Chic says.

If they’re being moved around - like cargo, Judge’s mind supplies angrily - that would make it harder to pick up a good read. Especially with all the blockers in the area.

It’s not nearly as bad as Grineer territory, but it’s still damn annoying.

Judge wonders how many other Tenno agents the Lotus has deployed here, because he’s pretty sure that all these alarms? All these scrambling crewmen? They’re not just here for Judge and Chic.

He hopes that if someone else gets to Kore first, they let her go instead of passing her by because she isn’t the warframe they were here for.

Judge feels bad for not stopping to help and escort the cells he and Chic have found on the way - he’s broken open the doors and Chic took care of restoring as much energy as she could, but he had to keep moving. He consoles himself that at least he didn’t leave those warframes helpless.

Besides, all of them looked at him and nodded before going off on their own. None of them attempted to follow. Judge figures that maybe those Tenno ended up looking for their own partners, or maybe they just wanted to deal with this alone.

“I found my boy,” Chic says and Judge stops, body vibrating with energy, with the urge to  _go, go, go, go, go, find her, bring her back, make sure she’s safe, apologize, run, run, run_.

“Where?” Judge asks and Chic cuts the energy link between them, nodding towards the vents. The alarms haven’t hit this area of the ship yet - or they have and someone else has silenced them. Either way, a small bonus to them.

“Go find your girl, I’ll get mine and we’ll meet up,” Chic pulls a pistol and fires at the vent, jumping up and sliding into it neatly, turning to nod at him, “I’ll have my communication link on. I’ll hear you, just call. It’s faster if we each go after our own, I think. We’ve cleared most of the main station.”

“Right,” Judge nods, secretly relieved. He doesn't think Kore would take too kindly to strangers being the first thing she sees. “Thank you, Chic.”

“No problem, Hades. See you soon. Good luck.”

“Stars be with you,” Judge nods at her, watches her disappear into the vent and turns to project his scan outwards. Kore, his heart beats, Kore, where are you?

The hypocrisy of not helping the other Tenno here further than the complete basics is not missed by him. Hadn’t he just argued with Kore about how she handles rescues and extractions of non-Tenno just a few days ago?

Void.

Judge slows his breathing and really sends out his energy, searching for her, even the smallest taste.

Kore could always find him, no matter what. He knows he can do this.

Judge knows he can do the same for her.

A glimmer of fading gold, like salt from the frozen seas.

Judge latches onto it, Nova moving without him as he pulls at it, like a rope. One hand after another. Climbing a wall, handhold and fingertips and a sheer drop.

Judge lets Nova take over, moving on autopilot as he feels himself almost slip away from this ship, this time, this place, this self. He focuses on only getting closer to Kore.

The glimmer becomes a trail of faded prints in sand, already shallowing with every breath of the shore, with every pulse of artificially circulated air and simulated gravity. But he’s getting closer. He can taste the heady buzz of her on his tongue, almost.

Almost.

Kore, Judge focuses,  _where are you_?

The footprints become sand become wind - leaves and ashes and snow and lost things carried by a solid and invisible presence buffeted against the back of your neck, drawn away into the distance. Shards of glass lost in space.

The wind becomes foam on the ocean and gas clouds on Venus and storm cells on Jupiter.

And then there is nothing but Kore in front of him, faint and swirling but present and there. He wants to reach out with the lightning of his own Void energy.

Judge doesn’t even realize Nova has stopped in front of a locked cell.

He comes back to himself, then, and hacks the cell door.

He doesn’t recognize the black and green warframe within - a Vauban - but he knows it’s Kore. It must be Kore.

There is no one else in this world or the next it could be aside from her.

“Kore,” Judge breathes, trying to tap into their com link, moving to work on the restraints holding the warframe to the metal slab, spread out and prone. “ _Kore!_ ”

Silence, Judge places Nova’s hand on the Vauban’s chest. He can’t see any damage, no marks, no signs of experimentation. Nothing taken, that he can tell. Nothing  _removed_.

Nothing put in, either.

Kore’s energy is here, and it’s - moving, it’s real. It’s not an after image, though it is weak and faded.

It’s her.

How hurt was she? From a faint probe of the Vauban’s shields he can tell that the Warframe hasn’t been completely calibrated and is nowhere near the standard any Tenno would need to fight off a Zanuka hunter.

But still - Judge repeatedly tries to hail her Cephalon, to try and get her to respond through their private channel.

“Kore?

It’s been almost two days since she was taken.

Shouldn’t she be awake by now?

“ _Kore!_ ” Judge says, sending a shock of Void energy through Nova’s arm to Vauban. He watches the magenta disperse over Vauban’s black chest. “Kore!”

And then static, a crackle in his hear, in his mind as Vauban’s sensors and energy flicker to life, Vauban’s head jerking and slowly rolling -

“I’m here,” Kore’s voice says through static, slowly clearing up, “ _Shit_.”

Relief.

Golden and cresting.

Kore.


	24. Chapter 24

“Judge, Judge, Judge,” He turns and Kore is standing in front of him, hands behind her back and rocking backwards and forward on her heels. He blinks up at her and then looks around to make sure that  _she actually means him_  because usually when she looks that excited and says his name there’s something else nearby that’s making her that excited that she wants him to look at.

But no - it’s his ship. Midas is nowhere in sight. So it has to be  _him_  that’s making her look that excited and happy and Judge tells himself very quickly and firmly that it’s really not good to let your hopes up like this. It only sets you up for the inevitable crash later followed by flaming embarrassment.

(Privately, the thought of making Kore’s face look this happy, this light, this soft, this spring, makes his stomach tingle like the glittering of far flung stars. Privately, Judge would like to be the reason Kore smiles like that someday. Privately, Judge wants to be one of the many stars caught in her teeth.)

“Judge!” Kore whines, switching from rocking on her feet to jumping from one foot to the other, as if she were standing barefoot on hot metal and not the cool smooth floor of his Orbiter while wearing the standard thick soled Tenno boots that they’ve all had since forever. She has nicer, newer ones that she uses whenever she enters formal Transference for a deployment, but these are the ones she woke up in and likes to use when it’s just the two of them on their ships.

“Kore,” Judge says, easing up from where he was trying to pry an Ayatan Star out from his Orbiter’s foundry. Ugly must have shoved it in there recently, because he’s pretty sure he would have noticed the Foundry acting up sooner. “Can I help you? Is something wrong?”

“No!” Kore says, practically squirming in her skin, “Close your eyes.”

“Kore,” Judge says carefully, trying to weigh his words - “Please no more infested on my ship. Please. If this is some pulsating - writhing - undulating -  _whatever_  - please. No more. I have Chainsaw and Helminth, aren’t they enough?”

“No! It’s not - “ Kore lets out a frustrated sigh, “Judge! Just close your eyes and trust me.”

“I trust you plenty,” Judge replies closing his eyes, “I’m just perpetually terrified of where that trust will take me.”

But he closes his eyes and waits. Kore’s hand pulls at his arm, both his arms, until he is holding his hands out in front of himself. She puts something thin and light in his open palms, fingertips pressing the object into his hands until he curls his fingers closed.

“Okay, open,” Kore says and Judge opens his eyes.

Kore’s face is excited and bright and Judge can’t help but grin a little because it’s not so often that Kore looks this carefree - that either of them look this carefree - but Kore just bounces a little - “Look!”

Judge turns down to his hands and blinks at the thin, rectangular box.

“Thank you? What is it?” Judge asks, slowly turning the plain looking plastic and metal over in his hands. It’s very light.

“It’s an old Earth reel,” Kore says, “I found it in the archives - it was all weird and messy, but Simaris helped me patch it up. Almost all of it is playable now,  _and_  audible.”

Kore’s shoulders push back and she stands up a little straighter. She beams at him and Judge grins -

“Really? A real old Earth reel?” Judge asks.

Kore nods enthusiastically and Judge feels his smile break across his face like a wave.

“Thank you, Kore - I - is there - I mean - thank you,” Judge says, looking at the pink that glows over Kore’s skin with her smile. “It’s just - I don’t have anything for you?”

Kore gives him a weird look, “You’re not supposed to?”

Judge just stares at her and Kore rolls her eyes, scuffing her boot on the floor.

“It’s your  _birthday_ ,” Kore says, “Well. Not the day you were born, I don’t think any of us remembers that. It’s the day you woke from cryo.”

Judge blinks, startled, “You remembered?”

“Of course I remember,” Kore says, “I remembered  _you_. I remembered  _remembering_.”

It feels like a star is caught somewhere between his stomach and his mouth.

Judge smiles, “I - I remember that, too.”

How could Judge forget? The day he first woke from cryo, and Kore. Persephone. Saryn. Vibrant red and gleaming white with dazzling gold and bottomless black. Persephone with her sword drawn and syndanda moved by the bullets and the breeze. Persephone standing, waiting, patient, and then sword blocking bullets and knives as he struggled to his feet and remembered how to fight and run and move and see again.

Persephone, mowing her way through Earth’s jungle, never too far ahead - but her toxic spores causing screams and death gurgles for meters and entire clearings ahead as she brought him to his Orbiter’s extraction unit.

Judge remembers her, as he tentatively got into his extractor - warframe slowly recalling, Tenno inside still asleep and forgotten - and flew away. He watched her, standing there on the empty landing pad covered in moss and dirt and dust. Persephone, bathed in gold and solemn blue.

Judge might not have known what time it was then, but as soon as he could remember time as a thing, he made sure to find out.

He holds the data clip in his palms, and the sun in his chest expands.

“Do you want to watch this with me? I mean - if you’re not sick of it, already,” Judge says and Kore’s eyes squeeze with her smile.

“Honestly? I was so focused on making sure it played well that I wasn't paying attention to what was actually playing,” Kore says and follows him towards the front of his Orbiter.

“Kore?” Judge says as he plugs the data clip into the correct port on his console.

“Yeah?” Kore asks, making herself comfortable on the floor among a dozen blankets that they’ve both dragged over here and left behind. Judge’s Cephalon dims the windows so the holo-screen on the ceiling clears and brightens.

The lights reflect on Kore’s face, in her eyes, in her teeth.

Judge rides the cresting wave of sunlight in his chest as he lies down next to her, holding his arm up, pinky extended.

Kore locks their small fingers together, squeezing as their hands lower between them.

“Thank you,” Judge says and Kore’s ankle lines up directly with his, a gentle nudge of bone.

“Happy birthday, Judge,” Kore says. “Thank you for being alive.”


	25. Chapter 25

“Tell me something,” Judge says, at the end of his rope and still completely uncertain, unsure, unstable. “Tell me  _anything_.”

The two Kore’s - only one of them can be Kore, only one of them can be  _his_  Kore - just stare at him with equal looks of frustration and incredulity.

“Could you  _be_  any vaguer than that?” The Kore on his left says, hands opening and closing with pent up irritation, irritation and energy  _rolling_  off of her in waves. Judge has to admit, whoever is the fake? They’re  _very good_. Though Judge can’t help but think that if their situation were reversed, Kore would have figured out who is the fake.

Judge  _loathes_ , and he means  _loathe_  on every level, he would even go so far as to say  _hates_  - like how he hates and fears tight spaces, like how he hates and disdains the Grineer - this hellish cocktail of Orokin technology and Sentient manipulation of it. He would love to know how the hell it got into him, into Kore, how it got so deep into them that they have to deal with it like this, right now.

“What kind of something?” The other Kore asks, the one on his right. Her face and voice seem calm and composed, but he can see the struggle, feel it. This Kore is keeping a tight reign on herself.

Judge wishes he knew which way Kore would react in this situation. Both are so equally her - to lash out and burn with the indignity of being  _copied_  and pitted against herself, or to retreat within and hold calm and steady. Untouchable.

“Something that only Kore and I share, something we share without speaking,” Judge says. It takes him a while to come up with that. But he thinks that - there is so much said between them, much more unsaid. He doesn’t think that the copy, the copy based on the surface of their thoughts, would be able to bring out the subtleties of that.

There is a river that flows underneath the surface of  _Hades and Persephone, Judge and Kore_  that is not touched by words or actions. It is glances. It is breaths. It is the skim of the very blunt fingernail against the outermost joint of the smallest finger. It is the not-touching of backs when they sleep. It is the shared stars from the views of their Orbiter decks.

There is something beyond words and names and warframes and memories, something deeper and present that shines.

Judge does not know how to measure or quantify this. If he were Kore he would say it is a soul, a bridge between  _their_  souls that braids and winds and clings: two hands stretched across the darkness of space, fingers around invisible wrists and catching, holding, pulling, binding. If he were Kore, Judge would say that the thing between them is a soul - vast and ever changing, unalienable, undeniable, unfathomable.

But Judge is not Kore, so he can’t say it is a soul shared, but maybe simply just the feeling of the words  _I remember you_.

The Kore on his right answers immediately, “I killed my parents on the Zariman.”

Judge and the other Kore turn to stare at her and the bristling, buzzing Kore’s fists are balled, shoulders thrown back in defiance. Like she’s daring Judge to comment. Her face dares him.

“I killed my parents,” She says, biting out the words, “They weren't - they were going to -  _they were monsters. So I killed them before they could kill me_.” She spits the words out like embers, glowing hot and lying between them with the danger of catching. Judge watches the anger and the bitterness in her face and he -

He believes her.

He believes what she is saying and the way she says it. The way she hurls the truth like an ultimatum, like she expects a rise out of him for this, revulsion. As though she expects him to turn against her even as he acknowledges this. She expects to be hurt, to be turned away.

And that is so very Kore.

And yet -

He turns to the Kore on his left, the silent Kore with waves. Her eyes are closed, and she feels even more far away.

And she says, calmly, measured, the lapping of waves -

“Whenever we go somewhere, whenever I go somewhere, I look for the clouds.” Her eyes are closed and she is somewhere that is not here, not next to Judge - uncertain - and the bristling Kore - defiant. She is somewhere not here, in this situation, she is somewhere inside of herself holding the doors open to something kept hidden in the folds of muscle fiber and nerves like a pearl. “Gas clouds, storm clouds, sand clouds, it doesn't matter. I want to see the sky. I want to see the clouds. I love the sky.”

This Kore opens her clear yellow-green eyes, her hands open, her shoulders relaxed, and her voice far away in the mist of her own mind, “I love the sky.”

Judge knows her.

He holds his hand out to her, a question.

Kore touches her fingertips to his and then pulls her hand back, her answer.

Kore has, in her own way, laid out the stones for the conclusion that she killed her parents on the Zariman. Really, there are only two endings for the parents of the Tenno. They killed each other or they were killed by a Tenno. And Kore - Kore, bitter and distrustful and curled tight around her wounds and at peace with her almost irreverent remaking of self - would never have allowed herself to be pursued by the remnants of who first made her. Judge knew this. Judge knows Kore and he knows what hurts her, if not the exact shape.

Judge had the clues from the way Kore never speaks of them, ignores and throws down the thoughts of who they were before they were Tenno, the way she talks about  _hunting_  and  _creation_. Judge has these clues from how she reacted to the Grineer Queen’s probing and the many other words dropped along the way.

In the back of his mind, Judge had already known that. And he thinks that Kore had already known that of him.

But this -

When Kore says  _I love the sky_ , she does not mean  _the sky_.

Judge feels, in the thing that Kore would call their souls, the conflict behind those words in her distant salt water tide voice.

When Kore - the real Kore, his Kore - says  _I love the sky_ in a voice that sounds like the cracking of distant ice in the ocean, Kore is saying  _it calls me_. A thing that has never been spoken, a thing that Judge thinks they have never considered.

But it does. Kore does not love Earth, she does not love the flora and fauna of earth, she does not love the oceans of Neptune, she does not love the frost of Jupiter, she does not love the endless horizon of Mars. Kore loves something contained inside all of these things that sinks a hook into the softest and most wounded parts of her; the strongest of those hooks being cast from the skies above them, from the stars, from the asteroids, from the infinite lights in the far away distance.

Judge knows this because whatever it is in those things calls to him too, in its own way.

Because Judge has seen Kore look at the sky with something like  _longing_  and  _remembrance_  and  _loss_. And he thinks that his own heart approaches feeling something like that when he looks into the darkness of space, when his ears fill with what he thinks is the sound of silence and the distance between stars.

When Kore’s warframe pauses as they reach their retrieval ships, and looks over her shoulder at the sprawling landscape of Europa’s ice cliffs or Mars’ sandstone mesas and arches, when Kore jumps up on top of a suspension wire and slowly turns her gaze up towards the sky at the thunderstorms building and the rolling masses of heavy, pregnant clouds -

It pulls at the heart. It pulls, as Kore would say, at the soul.

A longing.

When Kore says  _I love the sky_ , she is not telling him to understand that she loves the sky and the things in it and the things that fall from it or even the things that reach for it. Kore is asking him to understand that she cannot explain or put to words the feeling that comes from looking up into the sometimes blue sometimes gold sometimes violet sometimes  _black_  expanse above them, only that it brings a stinging wetness to the eyes and gently lathes the breath out of the lungs. Kore is telling him that the feeling of the sky is enough to move her out of silence and distance.

Kore is telling him, when she says those words, that the sky and all that it holds and rises over - the reflection of the sky in the sea, the glimpses of it between feathers of birds in flight, the fragments of it glimmering through trees, the cut of it against rocks - hurts and robs.

When Kore says the words  _I love the sky_ , Kore is saying that if she continues with this line of thought, she will not be able to come back.

“Thank you,” Judge tells her as he watches her fold into herself, pulling herself together around the wound of this moment, “I’m sorry.”

Kore just nods her head and Judge turns to the burning, bright illusion.

“We’ve won this game,” Judge says, “ _Leave_.”

The fake Kore sneers, face distorting in ways that causes a spike of pain through Judge’s brain before it disappears, hissing in the warped and chilling voice of a Sentient, “ _For now, until death._ ”

Judge’s stomach lurches as he’s jerked out of the illusion and is returned to the derelict chamber they were exploring after they had finished cleansing the area of infested.

Kore is still standing at his right, far away in her own head. But she turns to look at him, face blank.

“Do you need to be alone?” Judge asks.

“Do you?” Kore replies.

Overall, Judge thinks this hurt her more than him. Illusions and the certainty of reality might be Judge’s weak point, but Kore was forced to expose things kept hidden inside of herself.

Judge thinks that Kore has gone her entire life without once saying the words that she killed her parents. Even if it was not exactly  _her_  who said it.

And on top of that -

 _I love the sky_.

“I’ll be alright,” Judge says, “I just need to hold Midas for a while. Have my Kavat look at me condescendingly.”

Kore’s eyes meet his, like she’s trying to see if he’s lying. She nods once and disappears in golden blue as she returns to her Saryn.

“I’m going ahead,” Kore says, each word cut precisely and cleanly. Ice sheared against rocks.

“I’ll cover you,” Judge says even though she doesn’t need it.

“I know,” Kore replies.

Judge returns to his Mesa and shrugs the feeling of unease and unanchored  _self_  off.

“Kore?”

She doesn’t respond, but the line is open.

“I love the sky, too.”


	26. Chapter 26

“Kore, please,” Judge groans jogging to keep up with Kore as she explores the room full of goods, “We can’t keep doing this.”

Kore jabs her finger at a merchant stall and says, “ _New. Experimental. Prototype. Now._ ”

“Kore, you can’t just keep buying experimental weapons and gadgets,” Judge says, trying to usher her past the weapons display. He doesn’t know why he always asks her to come to these things with him. It’s always a disaster and frankly he should know better by now.

The merchant, despite not being able to hear Kore’s enthusiasm is long familiar with this routine. Kore will rush up to whatever she thinks is interesting, the merchant will list the specs and the price, Judge will attempt to get Kore to  _not get the thing_. Kore will ignore him and get the thing.

It’s not as though Kore  _can’t afford_  to get the thing. It’s not that Kore isn’t  _experienced_  enough with weapons that she can’t get the thing. It’s not even that Kore stockpiles the many, many things and never uses them. Oh, she uses them.

She uses them a lot. She uses them, he’d say, very well. In fact, Judge would go so far as to say that Kore uses them in ways they shouldn’t even be used, beyond their potential and their purpose in creative and dangerous ways.

Judge will inevitably fail to get Kore to not buy the new prototype weapon. In fact, not only will Kore buy this weapon, but she will immediately go off on a solo mission somewhere and start experimenting with its capabilities. Judge will not know the results until days, possibly weeks later.

Entire  _planetary rotations later_ , sometimes.

The weapons dealer begins talking, handing Kore a model as she lifts it and turns it, testing the weight and the feel of it in her hands. Even if she doesn’t like it, she’ll get it.

Because - what is the meaning of weight and feel in your hands when you can change your hands? Granted, overall, you get a feeling for what you do and don’t like to use. But Judge knows that a Fragor in Rhino’s hands is infinitely more preferable to using the exact same spec’d Fragor in a Mag’s, and a Skana is much more deadly and versatile in an Excalibur’s than in a Wu Kong’s.

It’s a rare occasion where Kore is not in her Saryn or her Ember or even her Titania, she’s in her Excalibur frame and she’s holding a very small but deadly looking pair of pistols.

He has no doubt that he’s going to be seeing them in the near future on Saryn or Titania’s hip.

Judge resigns himself to this.

And then a loud sound rings out through the warehouse and every head turns to see that Darvo  and Clem are dragging themselves in along with huge crates of cargo. They look haggard and beat up. Like they’ve been chased or recently escaped some Grineer or Corpus fliers.

Kore does not really like Darvo or Clem.

But she does appreciate their deals and their ability to sneak in contraband.

She puts down the pistols, raises one finger at the merchant and gestures for him to hold what he was saying, wait, and she  _runs_. Judge feels her go in a rush of wind and energy as she dashes and then bullet jumps into the air, aiming for a dive straight at Darvo.

She’s not the only one either. At least two dozen tenno bullet jump, leap, spiral, glide, and dash across the warehouse towards Darvo before he can even set up.

Judge throws Mesa’s hands into the air.

“Kore! Please!  _We really can’t keep doing this!_ You’ll run out of room in your arsenal storage, and I’m not letting you use mine.”

“ _New. Weapons. Now_.” Kore replies and cuts their channel, apparently annoyed with Judge trying to be the moderate one.

-

“You have a problem,” Kore says as she wades her way through junk. “I can’t believe your cephalon hasn’t just thrown all this into space.”

“That’s space pollution and illegal.”

“Tell that to literally everyone else in existence,” Kore says, nudging some noggles shaped like little Nova’s aside with her foot. “I hope Ugly chokes on something.”

As she says this, she sees a flash of fluorescent colors and she turns to see Ugly attempting to fight seven Oberon noggle toys at once. Ugly has one in its jaws, and is wildly clawing at two more, and - as if they were actually attacking - downed on the ground with four more on top of it.

“I dont know how you continue to exist,” Kore tells the Kavat, “Persistence and spite will only get you so far without skill and some amount of foresight.”

The Kavat yowls like it’s dying and rolls into another pile of noggle statues, writhing on the Orbiter floor and trying to destroy them with a complete lack of understanding of its situation.

Kore looks around for Judge’s sentinels, glancing up and recoiling in horror when she finds even his  _ceiling_  is coated in bobbing noggle statues.

“Void, aren’t you claustraphobic?” Kore asks, kicking aside more noggles and making space to walk.

She jumps a little when one of the piles of statues starts moving. It’s only Midas. The puppy wiggles his way to the surface of the pile, stubby forelegs held out as he barks for help.

Kore quickly goes over and picks him up, holding him to her chest. Midas barks wildly at the noggles around them, snuggling into her arms.

“Judge, where are you?”

“I’m trapped,” Judge says and Kore looks up towards the raised bridge to the main observation deck. “It won’t open. I went to bring some noggles up here but then the bridge closed and now it wont open again. Scylla isn’t answering me.”

“Tenno Kore,” Scylla says, the interior of the ship brightening some, but not much considering there’s noggles everywhere blocking all forms of light, “Please convince Scylla’s Operator to cease and desist at once.”

“Look at what you’ve done, Judge,” Kore says, “You’ve gone so far your own ship is staging a revolt.”

“Operator, Scylla cannot keep up with the amount of noggles being brought on board! They are interfering with Orbiter functions!” Scylla exclaims, “Scylla appreciates the Operator’s sense of aesthetics, but Scylla cannot keep up.”

Scylla’s voice pauses, and then stutters, a little less frazzled sounding and more contrite, “Scylla apologizes for not being capable of keeping up, Operator. Scylla is trying but it is very hard. Scylla cannot even sense bio-rhythms on board with sensors blocked. Operator, please do not be upset with Scylla. Scylla knows she is a flawed cephalon…”

“Now you’re going to make your Cephalon cry,” Kore says, kicking noggle statues into piles so she can put Midas down, “Judge you’re out of control.”

“I can’t help it!” Judge says, “There’s a new series that just got released! It’s pointless if I don’t get them all.”

“But  _how many of them do you need?_ ” Kore asks. “Judge I see at least ten of the exact same Oberon noggle, and I’m only looking at one  _corner_.”

“What if they become collectible?”

“What if you die from asphyxiation because your noggles blocked all the vents?”

“Can I at least come down so we can talk?” Judge asks.

“Ask your Cephalon, I’m not in charge of this,” Kore says, “You and your Cephalon work it out. I’m taking Midas back to my ship. Where’s Chainsaw?”

Summoned by her name, Kore feels a large bulk push against her back. She turns and sees Chainsaw cowering at her back, the massive Charger hunched down and whining.

“You giant baby,” Kore sighs, petting Chainsaw’s head. “Alright, I’m taking Chainsaw and Midas. Your Kavat is a lost cause and be buried alive here with you. Hail me when this is sorted.”

Kore pauses and stoops down to grab a Saryn noggle, “I’m taking one though. You have like, twenty of these.”


	27. Chapter 27

“Kore, help,” Judge says sounding like he’s about to cry - or maybe he’s already crying - and Kore drops - gently - her Shade and starts running. She hears the Sentinel’s alarmed beeping before its motors kick in and its hovering on its own. Shade will be fine. Shade just needed comfort and reassurance, there is nothing physically wrong with her Shade.

Judge on the other hand.  _Judge_.

Her Shade will definitely understand.

Kore crosses their ships in record time, lungs burning, she skids to a stop in front of her partner.

And then she’s breathless for another reason. Kore feels her eyes get so wide they might pop out of her face.

“You  _didn’t_ ,” Kore says, even though she’s facing evidence that he definitely did.

Judge is full on crying now, but he’s got his arms around a huge, thick, bulky neck.

“He’s a  _big boy_ ,” Judge sobs, barely coherent sounding as he clings to the neck of the giant, barrel chested kubrow standing next to him. Judge isn’t even standing on his own, he’s just hanging on for dear life. “Kore,  _he’s my big boy_.”

Kore feels like she’s going to start crying, too.

Midas barks, a loud, deep, ear ringing sound that makes her teeth buzz. Midas, pup extraordinaire, is now a  _fully grown kubrow_.

“You let him mature,” Kore puts her hands over her mouth, feeling the tears start to build in her eyes, “You let him grow up. Judge, I’m so - I’m so.  _He’s beautiful._  Midas, you beautiful boy. My beautiful baby boy.”

Midas stands taller than Judge, is three times as thick, and has a dopey smile on his huge stout head. She can’t see around him but she’s willing to be her entire ship that his stumpy little tail is wagging at maximum speeds.

Midas barks again, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he looks between Kore and Judge, oblivious to their overwhelmed joy.

Kore takes a tentative step forward, still fighting back tears, before rushing in to join Judge in hugging the Kubrow’s massive neck.

Midas barks, trying to twist his huge but short neck around to see either one of them.

He’s big and he’s warm and he’s fluffy and he’s taller than Kore and Judge but he’s a big boy and Kore is so excited to see what he’s going to do out in the field.

“You know you have to start training him, right?” Kore says through a mouthful of Midas’ fur, where her face is planted into his massive shoulder.

“He’s a baby,” Judge says on the other side, hiccuping through tears, “What if he gets hurt?”

“Judge, he’s the size of a three Rhino chassises,” Kore says, “You could  _ride him into battle_. Besides, all of  _my_  kubrow are babies and there’s no problem there.”

“Your kubrow are like you, but Midas is  _pure and sweet_.”

“If Midas is anything like you he’ll probably inadvertently destroy something,” Kore says. And then she lifts her head from Midas’ fur, looking around. “Where’s Ugly?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen Handsome for a while,” Judge says, “I’ve been focused on Midas.”

“Cephalon Scylla, where is Ugly?” Kore asks, because it is not a good idea to ever forget that Ugly exists in this world, and continues to persist in being -  _Ugly_.

“Tenno Kore the Kavat is concealing itself by hiding in the Helminth chamber,” Scylla replies, “Helminth is most displeased. Scylla does not think the Kavat likes Midas’ matured state.”

Kore grins, trying to wrap her arms around Midas and delighting in the fact that she can’t, “Midas, baby boy, I love you so much you are a gift that keeps on giving.”

Kore shuffles over so her face is closer to Midas’, “You will make Ugly regret the day they decided to curse this ship with their existence, I know you will. You’re going to make me proud.”

“Stop corrupting my kubrow.”

“Stop letting your kavat run your ship,” Kore replies.

Midas barks, oblivious to the political and hierarchical drama he’s started by being his glorious self, and sits down. It makes very little difference in his height.

“I’m going to get Hajra, I want to see who’s taller. Midas is definitely the big boy here, but I want to see if he’s taller,” Kore says, reluctantly peeling herself away from Midas and already missing the feel of hugging him, “Also Valencia is going to be delighted that her little pup friend is now a big pup friend.”

“I don’t want your tank disguised as a kubrow teaching my puppy disguised as a tank anything weird,” Judge says.

“Ship?  _Sailed_.”

-

“So, how are things going now that you’ve finished your creepy and mystical quest with the soul-sucking jar?” Kore asks, “Is the reward worth it?”

“Debatable,” Judge replies, awkwardly shuffling forward in his new warframe. “I haven’t tested Inaros out yet enough to get a feel.”

“But how does that feel  _feel_  right now?”

“Awkward and clumsy,” Judge replies. “That can be fixed with time, right?”

“Mostly,” Kore says, “I’m excited to see what happens when you’re downed for the first time. I was told that a  _coffin_  will appear.”

“A  _what_? Who told you that?”

“Some other Steel Meridian members I talked to. Some of them have Inaros specs also, it looks like Baro Ki’Teer wasn't just having you suck souls. Apparently if you get downed in a fight a giant coffin appears and you heal up some. I want to see this happen. Let’s go find something that’ll hit you really hard.”

“Kore that goes against everything you’ve done to keep me alive.”

“You won’t be dead! Not really! And I’d be there to step in if things got really bad,” Kore says, “I want to see the magic sand coffin.”

“You couldn’t have asked one of the Steel Meridian members to send you a clip?”

“I want to see it with my own two eyes through my optic sensors,” Kore says, “Don’t make me shoot you to see it happen.”


	28. Chapter 28

Judge finds Kore in her transference chamber, meditating at the edge of the far side of the room. She’s illuminated by the strange pale white light of the organic tree-like growths that fill the space behind the transference chair and the open pit that leads into some of the more delicate chambers of the Orbiter.

“Kore?” Judge asks, approaching slowly, uncertain and a little afraid, “What’s happening?”

It’s not Kore who answers him, but her Cephalon.

Cephalon Ordis’ voice changes from his usual pleasant and chipper sound, sliding into a pixelated and deep, slow, amused Ordin Karris - the voice that sends shivers down Judge’s spine and flicks uncomfortable heat at the back of his neck and ears. It is stills strange whenever Ordis’ voice does that. From what Kore explained, the Cephalon isn’t changing personalities, exactly - Ordin Karris’ voice, if you listen hard enough, is audible underneath the lighter, airier Ordis voice at all times - he’s just letting more of the parts he hides to avoid destruction by the other Cephalons or other people come to the surface.

“My Operator,” Ordis drawls, voice cracking fond, “Is currently experiencing  _karma_.”

“Karma?” Judge asks, confused and a little unnerved. He can’t explain why Ordan Karris’ voice - even if he’s still  _Ordis_  - makes him feel weird. It just  _does_. “What do you mean karma?”

“Judge,” Kore says softly, not moving from where she’s sitting cross legged, head lightly bent forward, hands - he assumes - palms up on her knees. “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

“What?”

“There is no god.”

“Um?”

“And I have become death, destroyer of worlds.”

“I - uh. Kind of know you’re a destroyer of worlds, Kore what’s going on? I’m - you’re scaring me. A little? A lot?” He thinks that Kore is quoting passages she learned under Ballas. Poetry, maybe? He wouldn’t know. It’s unlike Kore to do that. But he also doubts that this is Kore being poetic because grandiosity like proclaiming herself the destroyer of worlds is also something far out of character for her. Kore is much more likely, he thinks, to call herself a deliverer of death than death itself.

Kore has always though of herself as a third party, a tool, a soldier. It is an opinion that is sometimes something she wears like a badge, and sometimes something she wears like a shackle.

Judge is unsure of how he feels about this perception. They were children. They were tools. They were weapons. They were many things. This is not wrong of her, or any of them, to think.

“You will sow what you reap,” Kore says and slowly levitates in the air, turning to face him. Her face is incredibly calm, and a little disturbing with how calm it is.

“I am scared,” Judge tells her. “Kore, I am afraid of you.”

She shakes her head and closes her eyes.

Kore takes in a slow breath and speaks, softly, in the tone of voice Judge recognizes as the one she uses whenever she is recalling something far away and long past, something she doesn’t particularly like but is resigned to having experienced, “When the lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the forth living creature saying,  _Come_.”

Ordis laughs, a deep laugh that cracks through the speakers, turning into silence and static.

Judge hears and senses doors within the Orbiter opening and he turns to see the door to the transference chamber unseal and open.

He stares.

Kore continues to speak, “I looked, and behond, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following him.”

The Kavat is -

The Kavat has beautiful colors. Pale delicate blue flanks and back, and gentle gloaming pink underbelly. And a lovely dust of pale yellow along its legs.

It’s tail is exactly like Joy’s - Judge didn’t even know Kore was breeding a new Kavat, but knowing her she’s extremely disappointed that the new one has Joy’s exact same tail and not a variant.

But - it’s  _face_.

Void and flames and stars and everything else in between,  _it’s face._

He feels his mouth slowly hang open as the creature trots into the room, looking around inquisitively before spotting its master. The karat brightens, the expression is absolutely terrifying on that face, and makes a beeline for Kore.

Judge jumps out of its way, giving it a wide birth as Kore stares into the distance, lowering herself to the ground and opening her arms to receive the thing.

Kore weakly embraces the Kavat that starts to rub against her and purr, pushing its head against Kore’s and licking at her cheek.

Kore’s smile is manic.

“She’s a Smeeta,” Kore says, “Joy is an Adarzha.”

It would have been easy for Kore to consign this Kavat if she were also an Adarzha. Kore doesn’t like having two of anything without reason. But Kore has needed a Smeeta Kavat, wanted one, since Tenno researchers figured out how to isolate and modify the Kavat gene.

Kore laughs, weekly, “Judge.  _Help_.”

“You can’t call Handsome Ugly anymore,” Judge says, staring in fascination at the affectionate but  _hideous_  Kavat as it cuddles Kore. He’d laugh, really. The creature is affectionate and sweet just like all of Kore’s other companions. It’s just - “Kore, I’m sorry.”

“I can’t,” Kore chokes, mechanically petting the creature, “ _Judge. I can’t consign her._  But - I also -  _look at her_.”

“Gene masking,” Judge says immediately. He had attempted it with Ugly for a while before deciding that it didn’t make a difference. “Kore,  _gene masking_.”

“I  _can’t_ ,” Kore whimpers as the Kavat curls up around and over her lap to sleep. “Judge, I have nothing left. I have less than  _one thousand credits_  to my name. I spent them all on - “

Kore loos down at the sleeping creature in her lap and chokes out, “ _On her._ ”

“Kore, you know what you have to do.”

Kore sniffles, “I know.”

She starts to pet the Kavat and she says, brokenly, “When I close my eyes I see her face and it haunts me. She didn’t look like this as a kitten, Judge. I have pictures of her as a kitten. She looked like  _Joy_. Ball ears. Long fluffy ears. Not - not this.”

Judge takes a step forward and then immediately takes two steps back. Actually - he void jumps back across the room.

“I’m sorry, Kore,” Judge says.

Kore slowly folds down over the sleeping Kavat, “The only thing there is to do, Judge, is to make sure she lives up to her visage. This face - the last thing people see before they die. A curse. A powerful weapon. A destroyer. A herald of doom. I will train her. Groom her. Raise her to be her maximum potential. It is the only recourse left.”


	29. Chapter 29

“I don't know how I feel, I think this is how you felt when you saw Spooky for the first time after you matured her in the Incubator,” Judge says as he watches the gangly kubrow trot around the orbiter, investigating the noggles and various object Judge has scattered around.

“You will never know the sheer horror and resignation I felt when I saw her face for the first time,” Kore says watching the kubrow with unabashed delight, “Also, do not  _normalize_  the Final Seal by giving her a cute monicker like  _Spooky_. Calling her Spooky is something like saying that Grineer are troubled or Corpus are patronizing. Call it like it is, Judge. Grineer are fucked up, Corpus are entitled shits, and the One that the Gods Forgot is an abomination.”

“You are so very dramatic about this,” Judge sighs as the new kubrow starts to enthusiastically trot and then  _run_  after Ugly. “The only reason you’re so happy is because he likes to bait and mess with my kavat.”

“Midas won’t do it, someone on this ship has to,” Kore says. “What a good boy. Look at him go. You go Cadmus. You teach that mean Kavat who’s boss.”

“Cadmus,  _no_ ,” Judge moans, “He’s only two days old. He’s going to corrupt Midas.”

“Impossible, Midas is pure and wonderful in every way. Being matured into a big boy did nothing to him.”

“Is it supposed to?”

“Look at the Pale Rider,” Kore says, “Well, don’t look at her, but consider her. She was the absolute most adorable and sweet looking kitten. Then I let the incubator mature her for combat and she came out -  _like that_.”

“She’s still the absolute sweetest. I’ve never seen a kavat so smitten and gentle with its owner.”

“She has the heart of an angel but the face of the unimaginable perils of the Void,” Kore says, “I don’t know what I feel for her - it’s some sort of mixture of love and incomprehensible dread. Anyway, my point is, Cadmus is good. He shakes things up. The social heirarchy and power dynamics of this ship are changing. Ugly will no longer rule unquestioned and unchallenged.”

“I think you having Spooky made you really dramatic,” Judge says as they walk over to where they can hear Helminth, Handsome, Scylla, and Cadmus arguing. Judge doesn’t want to know but it’s his ship so he does have to know. “It’s refreshing and interesting, I like it.”

Judge gives Kore a quick smile even as concern for his ship and his kavat tug at the back of his head.

Kore rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling, too.

They round the corner and Judge’s smile drops instantly. Kore bursts out laughing.

Handsome is clinging to the ceiling of the Helminth chamber, hissing. Cadmus is repeatedly trying to get up at her, rearing up on his legs and falling a few feet short of getting his nose swiped off by Handsome’s sharp claws.

Helminth is hissing and trying to get both creatures out - “ _You let this pestilence in, ghost_ ”.

Scylla replies calmly,  _The Operator has allowed his companions access to every room, Helminth. Scylls did not permit the Kavat in, it is not Scylla’s place. The doors are automatic, Helminth. This is not a fault of Scylla’s programming. Is there a problem?_

“I like it when your Cephalon gets snippy,” Kore says, still grinning as she watches this tableau unfold in front of them. “I like your new rowdy boy.”

Judge, of course, loves his new rowdy boy but he’s also extremely concerned that his rowdy boy and his picky Kavat are going to rip each other to shreds.

“Kore, this is going to be war on my ship,” Judge says, “We’re all family, this can’t happen.”

“Does Midas know there’s going to be war on this ship?” Kore asks.

“What?”

Judge is almost knocked over - saved only by Kore reaching out and grabbing his arm as he falls - by Midas barreling into the room and tackling Cadmus into the floor.

Cadmus yelps but Midas is enthusiastically barking and nuzzling and goading his new brother into play while at the same time  _successfully_  surging up to knock Handsome from the ceiling and onto the Orbiter floor.

“He still doesn’t know he’s a big boy, does he?” Kore says as they watch Midas successfully corral both Handsome and Cadmus together in a corner of the Helminth room.

“Nope,” Judge sighs, holding very still before Kore lets his wrist go. She leans against the open door of the Helminth chamber. Judge watches his large kubrow tussle with his smaller and younger kubrow and his kavat. “He thinks this is a game, doesn’t he?”

“I’m sure Cadmus also thinks this is a game,” Kore says, “A one sided game, but definitely a game.”

“My poor kavat.”

“Your poor kavat  _nothing_ , after all the crap Ugly pulls daily?” Kore snorts, shaking her head, “At least now they’re learning they can’t boss you around. Cadmus is looking out for your. Consciously, even. Midas doesn’t know he’s a big boy and thinks they’re still playing. Cadmus  _knows_  he’s the  _bigge_ r _boy_ between himself and your Kavat and he’s using it to every advantage. I like the way he thinks.”

“Kore, that’s bully behavior.”

“No, Judge, that’s heroics. It’s tactics. He’s fighting back against Ugly.”

“I really don’t know what you think goes on in this ship,” Judge says, “Not everyone runs their ship like a finely tuned military machine with ranks and all.”

“I don’t know what you think goes on on  _my_  ship, either, if you think that an organized rank of who follows who’s orders is a  _finely tuned military machine_ ,” Kore replies. “My kubrow and kavat  _listen_  to me when I tell them to do stuff. You just look at yours and  _hope_.”

Kore glances around.

“Where’s Chainsaw?”  

“Hiding.”

Kore blinks, “Chainsaw is twice Cadmus’ size, why is she hiding?”

“They were playing hide and seek and I think Cadmus forgot?”

Kore just stares at him.

“Also, Chainsaw doesn’t like fights so she’s probably using this as an opportunity to not get involved.”

Kore nods, “Sounds more like her.”

There’s a loud yelp and they both look to see that Midas has sat on both Cadmus and Handsome and is now barking at Helminth, who continues to hiss.

“I’m going to get Isha, he’s going to  _love this_ ,” Kore says, “Wait there. I’m getting Joy, too. The three of them can chase Ugly.”

“Stop picking on Handsome.”

“Tell Ugly to stop being a shit.”

“He’s a  _kavat_ , that's just their personality!”

“Excuses.”


	30. Chapter 30

Kore’s breathing is slow and even and gentle. Judge can’t really hear it. The only sounds are her, him, and the Orbiter. Judge wonders if she can tell that he’s watching her sleep.

Maybe?

Judge watches the slow rise and fall of her breathing. Kore doesn’t really move much in her sleep once she’s found a comfortable position. Judge sits up and draws his knees to his chest.

 _She loves you_.

He knows that. Of course he knows that.

Kore wouldn’t be here if she didn’t. Kore wouldn’t have stayed with him so long. She wouldn’t have bothered to hang around, saving him from his own messes time and time again. Kore wouldn’t come back, inevitable as a wave or as steadfast as the moon around Earth.

She wouldn’t be sleeping and letting him watch her sleep if she didn’t.

And Judge knows, without a doubt in his mind - for  _once -_ that he loves her.

But - and here is where he falters - is it the same?

Does Kore love Judge the way Judge loves Kore?

He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know if Kore loves him like she loves all the other things in her care - something that is hers and hers alone, something she protects and is responsible for, something she keeps close for the purpose of protecting and protection.

And Judge doesn’t know if she loves him the way he loves hitting maximum speeds in Archwing as he hurtles between asteroids and explosive blasts and energy beams. He doesn’t know if she loves him the way he loves the pound of his pulse and the way it thumps in his throat as he watches lights flare and hears the sound of a Bursa coming his way. Does Kore love him the way that he loves the heady, exhilarating,  _grounding_  and completely  _present and real and undeniable_  waking up when he stares down a Sentient on Neptune or a Kuva guard?

Does Kore love Judge the way Judge loves the feeling of being alive and present and  _necessary_?

Judge doesn’t know if this is the kind of love you’re supposed to have, either. Is it the  _right kind_?

In the back of his mind he has the vaguest and most uncertain memory - or imagined moment - of his parents kissing. He doesn’t - he can’t see the details of their faces. Surely they must look like him, in some way. But it’s been years and years and years and centuries and  _centuries_.

He’s lost their faces and he’s long made his peace with it.

But - did his parents kiss? Is that what he wants with Kore? Is that what the swooping and warm gust in his stomach is?

Judge doesn’t  _think_  he wants to kiss Kore. He’s never tried kissing before. He’s not - he’s not even sure on how you’re  _supposed_  to kiss someone.

Judge knows that grown ups have intercourse to create children, and sometimes the act of intercourse is used to express desire and love and affection. But Judge is fairly certain he  _doesn’t_  want to make children with Kore. At least, not right now. Maybe in the future. He doesn’t know. Judge doesn’t know.

Judge doesn’t know if he wants to kiss Kore or become her partner for child rearing.

He does know that he likes being here. With her. He likes that she trusts him enough and wants him around enough to let him see her sleep. He likes that she comes onto his Orbiter like it’s hers and talks to his animal companions like they’re hers and plays with his sentinels like they’re hers and that she’ll go through his codex and use his foundry like they’re hers. He likes that she’ll come aboard his Orbiter in her inner suit and less than that; he likes it when she comes bare foot covered in pigment from her latest redesign of one of her warframes or her Kubrow’s armor or her Kavat’s accessories.

Judge likes it when she greets him on her own Orbiter, hair messy with sleep and her eyes half closed. Judge likes it when he hands her a protein brick and she eats it half-asleep, slowly and methodically without even thinking about it.

He likes it when she sees him biting his lip and she touches her fingers to his wrist and reminds him of the candy she bought him by the boxes. He likes it when she complains about green flavor.

Judge  _likes her_.

And he wants them to always stay like this, perfect partners and friends.

 _She loves you_ , Teshin had said and Judge at the time felt -  _angry_.

What would you know of love?

That’s what he wanted to say. And he was so surprised by his own anger that he didn’t say anything at all.

Judge doesn’t know why Teshin saying that made him angry. Maybe it was the way Teshin said it. Maybe it was the way Teshin seemed to sound disapproving - of her, of him, of them both, of the very idea of love, even. Maybe Judge was just projecting.

He knows that she loves him. She must - he can’t imagine why she’d stay around for so long if she didn’t.

And he knows that he loves her, too.

But -  _how_?

Kore is curled half onto her front, face tucked up on her bent elbow. Judge reaches for her and falls short, his hand next to her head.

The tip of his pinky can feel the tips of her pink hair.

His stomach floods golden warm.

He wonders if it matters  _how_. If he ever found out how she loved him, and it wasn’t the same as the way he loves her, he doesn’t think it would change anything. He hopes it wouldn’t, at least.

Kore continues to sleep and Judge turns his eyes from her towards the clear planes of the Orbiter and out towards space.

Clear and dark as far as the eye can see.

Judge’s heart pounds, a snarling twist of fear and anxiety and excitement.

He hears and feels something shifting fabric and he turns to see Kore’s newest and most terrifying companion yet - her Kavat, who Kore  _still_  refuses to give a real name to - is shuffling her way into Kore’s sleeping arrangement.

The Kavat looks at him with glowing eyes, caught and Judge’s entire spine surges with an indescribable urge to both laugh and recoil.

Void, she’s a truly ugly Kavat.

Judge nods at her and the Kavat immediately returns to snuggling up against Kore, head nuzzling underneath Kore’s chin as Kore wraps her body around her Kavat.

Kore will be horrified when she wakes up and the first thing she sees is the Unmentionable One’s face next to her own, but Judge knows that Kore loves that Kavat.

Judge looks down and the Unmentionable One has put one of her paws on Judge’s hand.

She really is the sweetest.

The Unmentionable One closes her eyes and goes to sleep.

Judge’s chest feels like it’s going to crack with warmth.

 _You love her, too_.

Void and stars, he does. How could he not?


	31. Chapter 31

“First I couldn’t get you to even mature Midas for combat and now you’re popping out new ones left and right and center,” Kore says as she watches the vivid red and green Kavat zip around Judge’s orbiter. “And somehow yours always - I don’t know, Judge. I mean, sure there’s Ugly being Ugly but at least Ugly’s got some redeeming features. And I guess - what’s his name?”

“Poppy,” Judge says. He’d seen a really faded file of the Earth flower before it mutated and it was really pretty. Supposedly they have some healing or medicinal properties. Mostly he thinks they just looked really bright and cheerful.

Poppy  _is_  a very bright Kavat. And cheerful - is. Well. Mischievous is just a different shade of cheerful, really.

“Well. Poppy might look like a complete station wreck of colors,” Kore says, “But otherwise he’s  _really cute_. That little button nose? The lovely tail? You always get the strangest luck when it comes to your companions, you know. Your Kubrow all have fantastic colorations and fur patterns. Mine are almost all spotted and brown. The only one different is Valencia, but she’s still brown.”

Valencia looks like she’s got war paint on her with her bright red markings and her gray hindquarters. Appropriate for a Kubrow built like a very small siege engine that breathes.

Kore wrinkles her own nose and says, “Both of my Kavats have the same ugly tail. In the same  _color_.”

“At least they both didn’t have the same face,” Judge points out. “You dodged a bullet there.”

“I know. It’d only be unfortunate if they both had the Dark and Forbidden One’s face, though.,” Kore says, clicking her tongue and beckoning Poppy over to her when the Kavat comes back into their line of sight and sees her, ears pinning and body lowering to the ground. “Hey, Poppy. I’m Kore. You’re going to have to get to know me because only one of us is expendable and that’s not me.”

“Kore,  _please_ ,” Judge groans, putting his head in his hand, “Why are you like this?”

“It worked,” Kore replies and Judge looks up to see that Poppy has come over to investigate Kore’s hand as she holds it out to him. Poppy then hits his head against her hand to be petted and starts purring, rubbing himself against her legs and winding around her like a furry snake. “Hi, buddy. You’re a cute baby.”

“I wish you’d talk to Handsome like that,” Judge says. “Maybe she wouldn’t be so mean if you did.”

“Over Ugly’s dead body,” Kore replies, “Where is Ugly? Doesn’t like your newest addition?”

Judge shrugs, “Somewhere hiding from Cadmus. Handsome likes Poppy though, I think. I saw Handsome grooming Poppy earlier. That has to mean something, right?”

“And did Ugly look happy about doing it?”

Handsome had not looked happy about it. Handsome looked like she was doing it because someone was holding a gun to her head and threatening her unless she groomed the newest addition to the Orbiter.

Poppy looked happy, though.

“Handsome never looks happy,” Judge says and Kore rolls her eyes.

Poppy has melted into a puddle at Kore’s feet in an accurate representation of how Judge, himself, feels whenever Kore so much as looks at him with at least a fourth of the amount of happiness and pleasure in her eyes as she’s giving Poppy right now.

Kore crouches down to continue giving poppy all the tender affection that the Kavat could possibly want.

“You’re going to spoil him,” Judge says, “What if he likes you better than me?”

“Well my ship is literally anchored to yours, so I don’t think that matters much,” Kore says as Poppy starts to purr. “We can train Poppy and the Blemish on this Existence together since they’re around the same age and experience level. They’re both Smeeta, right?”

“Every time you talk about Spooky you give her a more ridiculous and theatrical name. Yes, Poppy is a Smeeta.”

“Stop calling her Spooky, that diminishes her power. Her existence cannot be labelled and contained to a single word or name,” Kore replies. Kore tilts her head, narrowing her eyes at something just past Judge, and clicks her tongue.

A very vivid phantom of color seems to appear out of thin air in the corner of Judge’s vision and he nearly screams when he turns his head and sees that Kore’s latest Kavat seems to have just  _materialized_. Instead he sort of lets out a choked warble and he starts coughing on spit. The Kavat glances at him and meows politely. She truly is the sweetest creature he’s ever encountered it’s just -  _her face._  Void. That face. Oomph.

“ _How_?” Judge says, clutching his chest as he backs up against a wall, “When?”

“The Last Seal likes to practice going invisible,” Kore replies, holding out her hand for her Kavat who comes over and immediately starts rubbing up against Kore’s entire arm. “I find it incredibly amusing. Keeps me sharp. Alert. Vigilant. A little sleepless.”

Poppy looks up at the Kavat. The other Kavat looks down at Poppy. Both of their tails go alert.

And the two immediately start chasing after each other, leaving Kore and Judge by themselves.

“They’ll get along wonderfully,” Kore says, rocking down from the crouch into a seated position, flashing Judge a smile that immediately makes him smile back. “I can’t wait for them to start teaming up with Cadmus.”

“Stop turning them against Handsome, it’s really mean. That’s bully behavior. You know how I respond to that.”

“If only Handsome didn’t try to kill you in your sleep,” Kore says, examining her nails, “I mean, of course that calls for some form of retaliation, Judge. Get Handsome to stop trying to kill you and then I’ll consider a ceasefire.”

“I can’t believe you’re at  _war_ with my Kavat.”

“I’m not at war, Judge, don’t be ridiculous,” Kore blows some hair out of her face as she looks up at him, “This is a  _seige_.”


	32. Chapter 32

“Kore,” Judge says and the bags underneath his eyes are absolutely horrendous. It’s not Kore’s place to nag Judge about his sleeping or eating habits - mostly because Kore knows he wouldn’t listen if she did and she’s self-aware enough to know that she doesn’t have room to be preaching at him when she goes entire stretches without eating anything more than one quarter of a nutrient brick - so she bites the inside of her cheek and settles for her silent but judgmental appraisal of his current state of  _very bad_.

Judge doesn’t have much hair, most of it shaved off, but what he does have is sticking up at strange tufts, like he’s been pulling at it. From here, even with how dark his mouth normally is, she can tell that it’s been bitten, chapped, and raw. His skin has an oily sheen to it and underneath that it has an unhealthy cast.

“I need help,” Judge says, eyes - a touch bloodshot - flick around his intensely crowded Orbiter. For someone with claustrophobia, Kore thinks, he sure does invite himself into plenty of tight spaces.

“Yes, and?” Kore asks, because she’s long made him aware of the fact that Judge’s hoarding is out of control and needs a serious intervention. Judge had told her that she was over reacting and that not everyone is like her.

Not every Tenno keeps their Orbiter in the near military-like precision Kore keeps hers. Kore would argue that she doesn’t keep her orbiter in military-like precise order, just that she doesn’t have piles of garbage and scrap metal piled up haphazardly on every available surface. Kore has her own messes: the occasional pigment splatter that she puts off getting rid of, a few baubles here and there, toys she’d made for her companions, some weapons parts for things she hasn’t built yet. But it’s all  _organized_  is the thing.

The old Earth saying was, “ _a place for everything and everything in its place._ ”

Judge reminds her that another old Earth saying was, “ _the rules are made up and the point don’t matter_.”

Kore would argue that the first saying holds more validity than the latter because the latter seemed to have been coined around the end of life on old Earth and probably led to the mass extinction and evacuations that followed.

Judge has his own response to that, but Kore thinks he’s just reaching.

Judge takes in a deep breath and looks her straight in the eye, “Help?”

Kore’s eyebrows raise and she’s not above being petty when she replies, “And what is it that’s finally knocked you into the approaching orbit of common sense?”

“I think,” Judge says, voice low and a touch raspy, “I think my Harrow frame is haunted.”

Kore weighs her responses to this admission.

Either Judge has gone around the bend due to lack of sleep - a problem that is easily fixed with a good sedative and Kore making sure he stays down for a few  _days_  - , the Void poisoning is really getting to him - a problem that cannot be fixed but managed -, or Judge is telling the truth and he has an incredibly dramatic frame going around scaring the shit out of him.

Kore’s own frames rarely leave their storage unless she pulls them to her with the force of her will, or if her own Void energy gets so strong and out of control that it bleeds back into them through their residual connection and gives them enough strength to move. But they rarely just  _go about_  her Orbiter like her Sentinels or her other companions.

Considering how Judge got the Harrow warframe Kore wouldn’t be surprised if the thing  _was_  haunted. Or perhaps - infected with the Void sickness through transference. There are many things going on there that they need to consider, but not right now.

Not when Judge is scared and tired and beaten like this.

“Have you considered that the frame is incredibly dramatic?” She asks just for the sake of asking.

“I feel like he hides places and waits,” Judge says, casting another glance around himself and then quickly checking over his shoulder. It’s impossible for there to be a frame hiding there because he’s kept his back to the windows the entire time.

Kore gives Judge a long and hard look.

“You want me to clean your Orbiter because the junk has gotten so out of hand you feel like things are hiding in the piles to get you,” Kore says. She doubts that - even if the frame is haunted and moving around like Judge says, it has any truly malicious intent. It’s not possible. If it were someone else’s frame somehow trapped on Judge’s ship, maybe. But not if its the frame he built and customized for  _himself_.

“ _Please_ ,” Judges voice cracks.

Kore, without looking, thrusts her arm into the nearest pile of junk and drags out a hissing and spitting Ugly by the back of her neck. She throws the Kavat using a touch of her Void energy for strength and speed. Judge yelps when the Kavat collides with him, there’s a flare up of his own magenta energy as he pushes power into his legs to keep himself from falling down.

“Take your hideous disaster and get off this ship, and go to mine; have Ordis bring out my Rhino and send over my companions; have my Helios stay with you if it makes you feel safer. Go to sleep Judge. I don’t want to hear anything from you unless the Stalker has somehow broken in again. I’ll call you back when I’m done.”

“I can help,” Judge protests.

“You’ll fight me on every move,” Kore tells him and jerks her thumb over her shoulder, “Go, fool. I’ll handle this. You need the rest. I promise not to scrap your entire ship.”

Judge’s shoulders drop, and his face relaxes. He looks relieved, but he also looks embarrassed and nervous.

As he passes Kore holds out her arm, he jerks to a stop an inch before running into it. He turns and blinks at her.

“Isha kicks in his sleep, not like he’s chasing something but a full on kick. Valencia likes to put her nose into your neck even if it gives you a crick but she’ll knock it off if you push her nose away. Hajra sprawls and rolls a lot. Hala will try and gnaw at you but it isn’t on purpose and mostly just gets drool and bruises. Joy kneads - no claws, but she does knead. The Last Seal to the End of the World sometimes sleeps with her eyes partially open. Empress’ protrusions might stick to your skin and hair, it’s harmless and doesn’t leave a residue but it feels tacky for a few hours afterwards. The Sentinels will leave you alone but you might hear my Helios get stuck in a scanning rut. Djinn with try to cuddle with you if you let it.”

She gives him that and waits.

Judge turns this over his in his head before nodding slowly, “I’ll keep Valencia and your Helios with me. I’ll be fine.”

Kore nods and starts to lower her arm, mind turning towards the task of organizing and cleaning up Judge’s ship.

Judge raises his hand slowly, telegraphing his movements.

Kore pauses as Judge’s arm slowly moves across her body and he stops.

She turns to look back at him.

“Can I?”

Kore nods and Judge slowly wraps an arm around her waist and steps closer, putting his chin on her shoulder in a very loose one armed hug. Kore raises her arms and squeezes him back, closing her eyes as he leans on her.

“Thanks,” Judge says, voice rough and shaking with relief.

Kore nods. “Get some sleep. I’ll handle this.”


	33. Chapter 33

In Kore’s defense - it’s an easy mistake to make, after all their names are literally  _one letter_  apart, their com-frequencies also happen to be almost identical, and they both use blue in their color schemes.

In Kore’s not defense - it’s her fault for relaxing and letting down her guard. Constant  _vigilance_  is key and she was a fool for relaxing even the minutest of amounts.

That’s what gets her into trouble. That’s what gets her -

 _Jude_.

Kore knew  _instantly_  that she had made a very costly mistake the second that she saw the other Tenno, and by the time the first syllable spoken in the wrong voice had made it through their coms link Kore was working out contingencies. She was working out how badly this could go, and what she should aim for as her best case scenario.

She was thinking about how fast she could get out of here, how fast she could run through this mission, and her chances of possibly puling the entire thing off without the other Tenno noticing -

And really, it’s understandable in hindsight why she got  _Jude and Judge_  confused. But Judge has no excuse for mistaking her for his partner.

But at the time Kore’s mind was flying through possibilities and courses of action. She was also thinking of how hard it would possibly to incapacitate the blue Atlas the other Tenno was using without alerting him to what she was trying to do and then get them both to extraction and if the mission could be finished or not.

By the time the Tenno she now knows is Jude finishes the sentence, “Hey darlin’, why are we on Pluto?” in the voice that is a little too low, a little too rough, and a little too slow to be Judge, Kore’s come to the conclusion that in the best case scenario she can bluff through this by going at this mission hard and fast with speed.

Her Charger, Empress, must have come to the same conclusion because Empress immediately set off into a dead run, tendrils glowing as she shot past the blue colored Atlas frame.

They don’t quite make without being discovered because apparently Jude’s  _real partner_  is very talky and not like Kore at all except for the vague color scheme of  _not-blue_.

When that entire ordeal is over, Kore rushing to get as far away from Pluto as possible, ignoring Jude’s cheerful,  _Nice work, see ya’ll ‘round for the next one? What say you?_ ,she’s begun to instruct Ordis on her plans to completely separate herself from the situation.

Kore spends the next five Earth months using her alternate color schemes for her warframes. Empress sulks a great deal because Kore is too paranoid to bring her along on missions for fear that she might be recognized.

She stops going to the relays altogether because  _you never fucking know_ , and Kore refuses to do anything near Pluto. At all.

And of course, she’s returned to a state of  _vigilance_. The Red Veil has never been more enthusiastic whenever they talk. Over secured com-lines, of course.

Judge blows five months of Kore’s careful hiding and disappearance in literally two seconds when he invites two other Tenno to their sabotage mission on Europa.

Kore is currently,  _dying_.

“I hate you,” Kore says over her private line with Judge.

Judge sounds like a very sad and confused puppy when he replies, “Why? What did I do?”

Kore ignores him.

“It’s you!” Jude says, generally getting into her space and trying to catch her attention, “The sword from Pluto! A Titania? Nice. I’ve actually been looking for you - I was hopin’ we could team up again. I was lookin’ for some help doing some Kuva runs and Chic here isn’t so much help as she is trouble.”

“Excuse me,” The other Tenno, code named Chic apparently, “But speak for yourself. You’re the only one who’s trouble.”

Kore grinds her teeth and curls Titania’s fingers into the back of Hajra’s breast plate, pulling the Kubrow back and towards her side.

“This is Punk and Chic,” Judge says, “We met when we were busting Alad V.”

Kore slowly turns to stare straight into the faceplate of Judge’s Mesa and she reopens their private line.

“You mean to tell me these two saw me at my  _lowest_? Judge.  _Judge_. I don’t associate with people who see me when I’m weak.”

“Well, technically, Punk was also captured - “

Kore cuts the line off again. She’s fairly certain that this mission doesn’t require four Tenno to complete it. She could cut her losses here and leave.

But a large and traitorous part of her doesn’t want to leave Judge alone with strangers.

“He was the blue Ember,” Judge says.

“Oh! You’re the green Vauban?” Chic says. “Vauban not working out of you?”

No, Vauban does not work out for Kore. In fact, she hasn’t used the frame since that incident almost a year ago.

This is hell. Kore is entirely certain that she’s in hell.

She shoves Punk - Jude _-_ away with one hand and draws her sword with the other.

“Let’s get this over with,” Kore grinds out. Because now she’s got to start the entire process of creating a new identity not just for  _herself_  but for Judge, too.

“I can’t believe you mistook her for me,” Chic says, “You said we were both pink. Her frame is coded an entirely different shade of pink.”

Strange, because at the time she met Jude on Pluto she was in her Saryn and her Saryn is red.

“It was - the same vicinity?” Punk says and Kore turns to stare at them.

“You thought I was her based on the fact that my frame was colored dark red?” Kore says flatly and Chic throws Trinity’s arms - her brilliant pink arms up - and lets out an exasperated groan.

“You colorblind fool,” Chic says, “I mean - sure, you picked up a nice girl. She’s ten times more capable than you and you need that, but  _how could you mistake her for me?_  Our aesthetics are completely different!”

Kore turns to Judge and tunes the other two tenno out, “Why do you do this to me. Are you angry? Did I do something  _wrong_? I demand to know what I’m being punished for.”

“I’m not punishing you,” Judge says, touching Mesa’s fingers to her elbow. “Kore, it’s good to socialize. Make friends.”

Titania grabs Mesa’s scarf and shakes her, “You. Me. Lotus. Our Cephalon. There, done. That’s it. That’s all I need. Why are you inflicting them on me? I hate this. I hate this situation. Now I have to create deep cover identities for us so we can leave this place and never be found again.”

“Kore, it’s not that bad. You just don’t like that they saw you vulnerable for all of three seconds  _once_  almost a year ago.”


	34. Chapter 34

  
“You are a fire,” The Red Veil member Kore is passing emblems to breathes out, sounding appropriately ominous and serious for someone of the Red Veil.

“Spreading fear and respect, yes, yes,” Kore messages back. She doesn’t like to use her own voice in a relay, or with anyone who isn’t Judge, for that matter. The synthesizer works fine and the Red Veil even seem to appreciate Kore’s  _professionalism_.

It’s more like rampant distaste for talking to people and being  _known_  by them, identifiable, quantifiable,  _remembered_. There are some Tenno who are bold and bright and loud and very much present; these Tenno want to be known, they want to be seen, they want to be noticed and remembered and held accountable and responsible. They want credit and they want notoriety. They want glory.

Kore is not one of those Tenno.

Kore would infinitely rather it just be her and her ship and the things on it and she supposes Judge and Judge’s ship and things on it. The galaxy does not need to know she exists. Perhaps, as far as the galaxy is concerned, she doesn’t.

Kore doesn’t mind being a faceless and unnoticed part of the system they live in.

If you are not seen, after all, if you are not remembered - they cannot come for you later.

The Red Veil member lowers his head once to her and Kore watches on her internal display as her accolades in the Red Veil raise. She then heads deeper into the Red Veil base to exchange her new points for some relics.

“Persephone! It  _is_  you! I almost didn’t recognize you - notice how everything turns red when you’re here? The lighting is like - super shitty and I thought you were someone else.”

Kore feels her gut fall out from her and a flash of white panic rips down her spine, almost knocking her out of transference.

Almost without her permission, her frame turns to look over her shoulder and sees  _Jude_. Call sign  _Punk_. Her Valkyr frame has always had an almost masochistic edge for looking straight at the most irritating thing in the room.

She can feel the  _judgement_  of all the Red Veil members on her and she turns to the nearest one and says, “He’s one of Hade’s, not mine.”

The judgement immediately turns to pity. The Red Veil have made it no secret that they disapprove of Judge and everything he does, and they often express that disapproval with loud, pointed breathing whenever he’s present. Kore finds their protectiveness of her amusing in that they seem to be hinting that she could do better than a boy from the Arbiters of Hexis.

She also finds Judge’s nervousness about passing the Red Veil headquarters without her present deeply entertaining.

Upon closer inspection, Kore sees that Jude’s Ember frame has the insignia for a Steel Meridian Defender on his breast.

By that logic he must at least be a rank two of Red Veil. But the Red Veil have never had any fondness for excessive chatter, so it’s probably he’s in their graces by distant deeds rather than approval of his - the rest of him.

“Wow, you’re high up, aren’t you?” Jude says when he sees Kore’s Steel Meridian Protector insignia. “Nice, nice, nice. Anyway, what’s up? I don’t really see you at relays. Where’s Judge?”

Kore considers ignoring him.

But apparently, unlike Judge, Jude either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that Kore is trying to actively avoid him because he walks right up to her and seems to wait expectantly for an answer.

Kore turns around and begins to walk as fast as she can towards the relay docking bay.

She is never coming back to any relay ever again. She’s going to start making Judge turn in her insignias for her. Scratch that - she’s never turning in insignias  _again_.

If anyone needs her they can hail her on her ship.

This is ridiculous.

“Is he not here?” Jude repeats, trotting alongside her as she tries to outpace him. She’s going to have to full on  _sprint_  like this and she’d rather not get the attention.

“No,” Kore finally grinds out, “Go away.”

“Oh, are you going to be meeting someone?” Jude tilts his head at her.

“No. I don’t like you. Go away,” Kore says because honesty has to count for something, right? And obviously avoiding him and the rest of the Tenno like the damned plague isn’t doing shit for her, so maybe going direct to it would work.

“Oh,” Jude says, “Okay.”

Kore is beyond relieved when the other Tenno turns around and starts walking the other way.

But then he turns back around and jogs up to her and says, “But we’re still going to the Derelict later, right?”

“We’re still  _what_?”

“Well, Hades  _said_  that we’d all go to the Derelict together to have a go at Lephantis because Chic - that’s Joy, my partner, you remember her, right? Pink Trinity? - mentioned wanting a Necros but Chic and I are actually - like? Really bad at fighting Lephantis? And Hades said that you once saved him from Lephantis single handedly and that you two both have Necros so you could help us. So, are we still going later?”

Kore may accidentally be leaking out a touch of Void energy because there’s a bright red light that’s casting a tint on Jude’s face. Kore shakes her hand out.

“That’s what I wanted to talk about,” Jude says, “Because Chic and I have keys for Lephanits, but we’d have to go in three times and we wanted to check if you guys had keys or if we should make our own, since - you know - it takes a bit of time? I wouldn’t sent a message or something, but I just saw you there and I thought why waste time by sending a message when I could just ask you right out, you know?”

Judge  _made a promise_  and Kore isn’t about to make Judge into an oath breaker. As much as she would rather avoid interacting with other Tenno.

“Yes,” Kore grinds out, “We’re still going.”

“Great! Thank you so much - you have no idea how big a favor this is for us!” Jude says, clapping Kore on the shoulder enthusiastically, “I promise we’ll rush this, we’ll make it as quick as possible. Seriously! We really appreciate it!”


	35. Chapter 35

Predictably, the fight against Lephantis does not go well. Kore, immediately, viciously, and with some small amount of very bitter and self-fulfilling satisfaction, regrets this entire venture instantly.

She regrets remembering Judge, she regrets staying with him, she regrets his despicably  _good_  nature of being the sort who  _helps people_  without a second thought, she regrets ever fighting with him that one time causing her to go off and do something stupid which caused her to get captured by Zanuka hunters which lead to him meeting this Tenno called Chic which lead to meeting this Tenno called Punk and has led them to  _this_.

Judge gets downed three times, Chic is downed once, but  _Kore bleeds out four times and needs assistance to get back up again_.

Punk  _is not downed once_  because three of the four times Kore got swarmed, mobbed, and summarily pounded down into the ground and out of transference were because she was distracting the Infested from getting to Punk when his shields were down and Kore had made the grave, grave,  _grave_  mistake of entering this in her Titania.

She had  _thought_  that her Titania frame would be good enough - between Judge’s Mag and Chic’s Trinity she had  _thought_  there would be enough support that she could just go in and slice through everything and use Titania’s enhanced mobility to get this over and done with.

She did not anticipate in anyway Punk’s absolutely terrible miscalculation of risks in that he would run straight into the closest Eximus without a second through and proceed to get himself  _beat up_.

And of course Kore isn’t going to have Judge go in and fix this.

“Well, the good news is that we only have to do this two more times,” Judge says as soon as they’ve gotten to extraction and have returned to their ships.

Kore had brought along her Taxon because she had thought it would be a good training opportunity for her youngest and weakest of her Sentinels.

Taxon was knocked out of the air about ten minutes into the mission and Kore had been dragging the poor thing behind on her back ever since.

Needless to say, her Taxon learned  _nothing_  and is now very scared that it upset her.

Kore carefully sets Taxon down next to Ordis’ specter frame and then calmly sits on the floor of her craft and steeples her fingers together.

“I. Hate. This.”

Two more times.

They have to do this  _two more times_.

At least.

There’s always a chance that Punk and Chic don’t find the blueprints they need in the next two runs.

Kore closes her eyes and presses her fingers to her cheeks and breathes out slowly.

“The Unspeakable One,” Kore says, and the Kavat is instantly trying to nuzzle and wiggle her way into Kore’s lap - ignoring the fact that she’s entirely too big for that. “Ordis, get Valkyr.”

“Yes, Operator,” Ordis says and Kore feels her frames moving inside the interior storage of the Orbiter.

Titania goes down into her storage capsule as Valkyr rises. It’s like a tangible feeling of heat and cold and air and  _gravitas_.

Kore calmly holds The Blight’s face in her hands and says, “I need you to be as terrible and awful and merciless as you unknowingly are. Do you understand me?”

Armageddon bares her sharp pointy little teeth. It’s supposed to be a smile. It looks like her skin is peeling back from her skull.

“I love how you understand me perfectly.”

Kore closes her eyes and feels Valkyr come alive around her, she flexes their hands and rolls their shoulders - all of Kore’s vexation becomes Valkyr’s warm  _drive_. Valkyr thrives best on Kore’s frustration, her outrage, her anger, her irritation, her  _spite_.

Valkyr easily hefts her Rubico from where Ordis’ specter is calmly holding it out to her.

“You know me so well,” Kore remarks dryly. Ordis doesn’t say anything, he just hands her a pair of swords, too. Valkyr calmly slides them over her back, passes a finger over the back of The Destroyer’s head and heads back to her deployment unit.

When they land Judge gives her a double take.

Kore ignores him and feels her mind slowly start to filter out the chatter, the noise, the excess.

There is her. There is her swords. There is her Kavat. There is her gun. And there is her mission.

“Void and stars, that is the ugliest Kavat I’ve ever seen,” Punk says.

The Blight smiles. Punk squeaks and scuttles to try and hide behind Chic.

Kore gives Judge a flat look, “I’m going.”

Judge nods and Kore is  _gone_.

She leaves swaths of cut down, burnt, cauterized, and otherwise incapable of fighting back hunks of Infested flesh in her wake.

Kore waits. She waits while the flesh and blood of Infested evaporates off of the heated edges of her Dax Dakara and she carefully tallies her ammunition.

As soon as the others enter and the chamber seals off she grabs Punk by the back of his neck and drags him off to the wall she had picked out earlier.

“You. Stay.  _Here_ ,” Kore says and she proceeds to wall climb up higher, focusing some energy into clinging to the wall as she sheathes her swords and replaces them with her Rubico.

Kore quickly fires off a warning shot at him with her Lex when he attempts to move, “ _Stay._ ”

“Stay there,” Judge says over the coms, “Chic and I will handle the floor. Keep Persephone clear.”

The Hubris of Man hisses softly, prowling the area.

Lephantis appears.

Kore calmly begins to take her shots, waiting because she knows she’ll have them. Judge will make them for her. He knows her by now.

“I can’t focus on hitting the back of their throat whenever they open their mouths to make noise,” Kore says lowly, “If I have to focus on keeping the lesser ones away from me. The Destroyer of Minds is only one Kavat. You’re an Ember unit. Do your job.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Punk says.

The fight is over in less than six minutes - she has Ordis doing a very calm and steady count down through her private channel with her ship - and Kore doesn’t even run out of ammunition.

Punk does an adequate job of keeping the Infested that come into the room off of her and even assists her Kavat whenever it looks like the creature is getting in over her head. Kore’s willing to give the other Tenno that.

Kore calmly detaches from the wall and lands next to him when it’s over.

“We’re going,” Kore says, switching her Rubico for her swords again.

“Okay,” Punk whispers with something Kore refuses to label as awe or respect or admiration.

Kore switches the channel to her private one with Judge, “As soon as they get that third part I’m directing Ordis to take me as far away from here as possible and I don’t want anyone trying to talk to me for at least a week.”

“I’ll buy you a new gun,” Judge says.

“You’re buying me a new gun and new knives for this,” Kore replies.

“Done. If I had know it would be that cheap I would’ve done this ages ago.”

“I don’t like this new confident and well off version of you.”

“Yes you do, you think my newfound capability is very attractive.”

“I think that it would be better if it didn’t come with some sort of strange righteous streak to match your reckless one.”


	36. Chapter 36

"So is your girl okay?” Chic says as he settles into the stands next to her. He can tell that part of her attention is on her ticket slips for all of her wagers. Judge didn’t know that there were Tenno who made their living on gambling and market trades instead of - actual Tenno stuff. He thinks it’s pretty neat. You’ve got to have a head for numbers and trends and calculations of risk and reward and stuff. Judge is self aware enough to know he’d never make it if he tried doing what Chic does, he’d probably be broke by the end of an Earth week.

“Yeah,” Judge says, though he’s not so sure himself. After the whole thing in the Derelict Kore went off grid for about two weeks, the only sign of her left was a single signal from the Void where apparently, according to her Cephalon, she spent the entire week doing extermination and sabotage and bounty capture drops.

Kore came back after those two weeks looking absolutely fresh and well rested and glowing in ways that you probably shouldn’t be looking after two weeks of isolation and one-way killing sprees.

“Self-care,” Kore had said, “Is retreating into the Void to kill the corrupted with your cat or dog or non-mammalian based companion.”

Kore had apparently been in such a good mood after, that she  _kissed his cheek_  - Kissed! Him! Judge! On the cheek! With her mouth! And everything! Judge still hasn’t gotten over it and he’s accidentally smacked his head on low-hanging ship parts about two dozen times whenever he remembers it. He knows that number because Scylla has been keeping count. - when she came back on her way to saying hello to his Kubrow and Kavats - minus Handsome, who Kore just kicked out of her way.

“She’s just really shy?” Judge says, voice tilting upwards at the end because he’s not exactly sure what to call Kore’s absolute loathing of having to interact with new people, more than one new person at one time, unfamiliarity with any situation or person, and complete and total near-black-out-violence disgust at being seen in less than perfect form by someone who isn’t Judge.

Judge is of the opinion that Kore - regardless of whether she’s in an incredibly un-tried warframe with less her usual load out of weaponry, or whether she’s gleaming white, devouring black, and brazen red in her Saryn Prime unit with the Stalker’s broken sword on her back, her sinister and sleek Rubico lazily held in her hands - is always in top form and he would honestly have the same reaction to meeting or seeing her for the first time regardless of whether she’s in a weak uncalibrated Vauban frame or her well worn and well balanced Excalibur frame. Though he admits he’s incredibly biased.

After all, Judge got to love her by the color of her - as Kore would say it - soul than the frame it was housed in. Judge loved her before he even had a voice to ask for her name.

His chest squirms like Kore’s favorite fizz-cola.

“Right, shy,” Chic says, leaning back in her seat and propping Trinity’s feet up on the seat in front of them. Lucky that there isn’t anyone sitting there, Judge things. Trinity’s feet are a little  _pointy_. “Is that what you call it? Whatever it is, it’s cute and I’m sorry Punk and I over stepped. He’s like a really dumb Kubrow that doesn’t realize it isn’t a puppy and that maybe some people are allergic to Kubrow.”

That sounds about right, except for how Kore  _adores_ anything that isn’t people-shaped and bipedal. Actually, now that he thinks about it, that might be why Kore doesn’t like Punk to start with.

Judge imagines it must be very difficult for her to handle what is essentially a really enthusiastic puppy in person-shape.

“Do you and Punk come here often?” Judge asks, looking around the Conclave arena, “I’m not much of a fan. I dabble a bit, but I’m not so good.”

“Punk’s actually a really good fighter,” Chic says, “Not against, you know,  _actual threats_ , but in an arena fight like this he knows what he’s doing. He’s making me money. What about Persephone? She seems like she’d be amazing at this.”

“Ah, no, as Persephone says - the sports disagree with her,” Judge laughs. “Also she has a profound distaste for being the focus of more than two people’s attention at once, unless they’re trying to kill her and she’s good to kill them back.”

“Huh, that explains things,” Chic muses and the general murmuring of the crowd quiets as a new frame ports into the arena.

Punk is still shaking hands with the other one, good natured and familiar in a way that Judge thinks means that both of them are regulars who fight often in Conclave.

The new warframe in the arena seems to freeze, locking up and then slowly turning to look around.

Judge realizes it just as the new frame tries to hail Teshin - based on the way it waves its warms -

“ _Teshin!”_  Judge stands up, waving his arms also to try and catch the man’s attention, “ _Teshin stop the match! Stop the match!_ ”

After Judge gets up, Chic must realize too because she joins him in trying to get Teshin to notice them.

Because that’s  _Kore_  in the arena and Judge can hear her now, she’s using a voice synthesizer but he knows it’s her. He just didn’t recognize her at first because she wasn’t in one of her usual frames. Judge knows that Kore has a Mirage frame, she just rarely uses it.

“This is a mistake,” Kore says, “I ported in by accident,  _let me out_.”

And then the worst possible thing happens.

Punk recognizes Kore. Judge doesn’t know how he does it, but he does.

“Oh!” Punk says, clapping his hands together, “Hey! Hey! Persephone! Hi! I haven’t seen you in forever, what’s up girl?”

And then Kore’s arms stop waving in the air and she slowly turns to look at the other Tenno in the arena.

Kore doesn’t say anything through the synthesizer, but Judge knows her well enough to know exactly what she’s doing back on her ship.

Kore is re-evaluating the entire situation, weighing the pros and cons of it. Kore is currently picking Punk apart with her eyes, like the Ballas trained elite fighter she is. Kore is currently smiling with all of her teeth and making a sound like  _oho? Ohoho. Ohohoho._

“Never mind,” Kore says, eerily calmly - and knowing her as Judge knows her, she’s trapped all of her  _glee_  inside and is pulling on full spiteful vengeful professional assassin mode on to cover it -, “Proceed.”

“Wait!” Chic says, still waving her arms, “Hold on!”

“Yes! No! Stop!” Judge agrees, because this can only end very badly and they need to stop this match right now.

“I need to change my bets, hold  _on_!” Chic yells and Judge turns to gape at her. Never mind that she can’t see it since Nova doesn’t have a mouth.

“ _Chic.”_

 _“_ She doesn’t do Conclave right, so this is her first time?” Chic says, frantic as she starts changing her ticket, “Alright. First fight she loses, second is a draw, third she wins, fourth she loses - based on her personality? She’s going to draw this out. Alternating to crush Punk into the ground for maximum catharsis on her part. I’m going to make so many credits off of your girl, you have no idea. I love this.”

“Aren’t you concerned that they’re going to get seriously hurt?”

“It’s Conclave, Hades,” Chic shrugs, “Besides. Punk? At all times he could  _always_  use a beat down. Trust me on this.”

“Void,” Judge groans, “They’re going to pound each other into the ground and it won’t even be for the same reasons.”

“I know, it’s wonderful. Punk will think he’s just teaching Persephone Conclave. And Persephone is going to like - wipe the arena clean with his blood, I love it.”


	37. Chapter 37

“Just because the answer isn’t always violence doesn’t mean the answer is  _never_  violence,” Kore protests as Judge examines the area. “Hades. Are you listening to me?”

“Hold on, give me a - I think I’ve figured it out, just wait. I’ve almost got this,” Hades says, waving her off as she throws a Grineer Scorpion off her sword and into a Heavy Gunner.

“Wait?  _For how long_?” Kore asks, baffled as she quickly flattens herself against the edge of a doorway to avoid increasing gunfire. Technically the fact that they’ve been bottlenecked into a small room facing a very large room is pretty good for her.

It pretty much forces the Grineer to crowd and Kore is excellent at dealing with crowds. The bad news is that they’re stuck in a very small room with pretty much indefinite Grineer heading in on their location.

“We’ve already been here too long,” Kore says, “We need to leave.  _Right now_. We don’t have enough to stay. I’m sure Chic and Punk have already made it out.”

They better have made it to their target. Kore and Judge did not set off alarms on this forsaken outer orbit outpost and hold Grineer attention for nearly  _an hour_  just for Punk and Chic to have  _not_  found their target and gotten the necessary information from them and hit extraction.

As much as she has certain…reservations about the other Tenno, she knows that they’re ultimately capable.

Punk has an Ember Prime frame and she has no damn idea how he got it. But he knows how to use it and it almost makes Kore’s soul fly backwards through the darkness to remember being an Ember, a time before the Saryn’s. A time before Ballas.

“Ah, I’ve got it,” Judge says and the security alarms click off and so do all the lights. Seconds later the galleon is lit up by emergency power and everything is dark and confusing except for gunfire. “Persephone, they’re blinded.”

“Okay?”

“You’re in your Banshee.”

“I know, I regretted it as soon as we hit the first drop,” Kore says.

“ _Deafen them_.”

Kore turns to where Judge’s frame is faintly glowing. At least, parts of the frame. The faint and hypnotic swirl of energy in Mag’s faceplate seems to be sucking her in. She digs her frame’s heels into the ground.

“Hades, if I deafen them and they’re already blind that seems like a good idea except that there’s about thirty of them out there between us and the rest of the ship. You can’t - I repeat - you can’t possibly take out all of them. We have literally fifteen percent life support left. We wouldn’t make it. There’s no life support beacons. We’ll have to go through them.”

“I’m going to take a risk and say that I can dispatch at least ten of them without damaging their life support. Persephone,  _trust me_.”

The problem isn’t that Kore doesn’t trust Judge. She trusts that he believes he can do this and she trusts that he has the ability to do this. The question isn’t  _can he_  the question is will fate and the powers that be actually let their life unfold down that path?

Only fools take that kind of shot in the literal dark risk.

Kore takes in a slow breath and curves the feeling of sound around herself, wrapping herself in Banshee and the feeling of liquid air lathing against her.

“Don’t. Miss,” Kore says and brings Banshee’s hands down hard and  _pushes_.

Kore feels more than she hears the gunfire stop. She feels Judge move rather than seeing his Mag fly by.

In the dark she sees flickers of Grineer lights go out one by one, the sounds of bodies hitting the floor sensations reverberating back against her sonic waves and up Banshee’s arms rather than actual audio that she receives.

Judge is a pull against her soul that she can imagine just as clear as the movement of her Saryn’s arm outstretching to deliver a deadly payload of spores. She can imagine his Mag moving, fast and lithe, nimble as she lips between Grineer and removes them from life one by one. Like snuffing out small little candles. The Grineer none the wiser than the candles as to what happens to them.

Banshee’s fingers curl against the ground, arms buzzing with sound and not-sound.

And by the time Judge has made it about halfway through she cuts her waves, and she launches herself forward out of her crouch and into the darkness. The faint glow of Judge’s Mag and the brilliant heat of her swords are all the light she needs to find the way.

“Told you,” Judge says. “Now let’s get out of here. I don’t think I can pull that trick off twice.”

“No, you can’t,” Because Kore wouldn’t let him tempt fate with a dice roll a second time in a row. “Lotus, we’re out. The risk is too great. Whatever’s been found will have to suffice.”

-

“I’m glad that you’re getting along with Spooky now,” Judge says. He has trouble looking at the Kavat directly, but she’s fine out of the corner of the eye or like, if you unfocus your eyes. She’s also very sweet and you don’t need to look at her directly to pet her or hug her.

“Please stop calling her Spooky,” Kore says.

“Stop calling Handsome Ugly.”

“Ugly doesn’t even respond to the name Handsome.”

“And who’s fault is that, do you think?”

“Fault? It’s not a thing that needs blame,” Kore says, hefting Spooky up into her arms. Spooky is much larger than the girl and the image is hilarious. Kore’s got her arms around Spooky’s body, hooked underneath Spooky’s forelegs. The rest of Spooky just drags between Kore’s legs as she awkwardly waddles herself and the Kavat closer to him. “What are you reading?”

Spooky turns her head up and starts licking underneath Kore’s chin, eyes closed in happiness.

Kore crouches down and lets Spooky go, and the Kavat rolls onto her back and starts to bat at Kore’s face lightly. Kore catches Spooky’s paws and just holds them.

“Oh, it’s this file on poetry that I found when I was going through Simaris’ archive. He said I could have a copy,” Judge says.

Kore makes a soft sound of interest and stretches her neck out to read, “Interesting. Do you like it? Poetry?”

“I like some of it,” Judge says, “I’m not sure if I understand it, though.”

Kore shrugs, turning down to look at her Kavat, grimacing a little. Spooky smiles back up at her. The effect is somewhat stomach churning even though it is a little funny. Kore sighs and starts petting underneath Spooky’s chin.

“You don’t have to understand something to like it.”

“I don’t know, Kore. I think Spooky is plenty easy to understand.”

“I meant you, not her,” Kore says. “On the best days I understand a fraction of you. But on my worst days I still like you.”


	38. Chapter 38

“Kore?” Judge calls out, glancing around the empty Orbiter. He knows she’s here, her Cephalon said as much, but she wasn’t on the lower decks near the bridge between their ships  and he didn’t see her on any of the other galleys and rooms on the way up to the main deck.

“Here,” Kore says and Judge backtracks towards her voice, faint, strangely muffled, and a little echo-ey. “Over here.”

Judge finds Kore in the floor’s maintenance room, underneath the service console. Her suit is halfway unzipped and flops around at the waist, and her underclothes are dark with sweat. The room is, he notices, unusually warm and he can see slight waves of heat rising from the console.

“I think Joy accidentally blocked one of the cooling vents for this room,” Kore says, “Not like how Ugly does it on purpose. I think one of Joy’s scrap cloth pieces got into a vent somehow and travelled along until it started doing some damage.”

Judge looks around for the Kavat and sees a glimpse of glowing yellow eyes from a corner before the Kavat ducks behind some circuitry.

“She feels very guilty about it, I think,” Judge says, slowly walking over, grimacing as the heat only increases. “How bad is it?”

“Found it quick so not too bad; Ordis noticed before anything really bad could happen. I’ve already got the cloth out but the overheating and the work on adjusting the temperature must have fried a circuit or something because the cooling system isn’t working at all. It’s just hot and annoying. You’d think the Orokin would make ships that are a little more resilient to minor inconveniences. You good in here?”

“Door’s open and it isn’t that crowded in here, this is fine,” Judge says, “I”ll come back later if you’re busy.”

Kore drags herself out from underneath the console, face shiny with sweat and red with heat, “No. It’s fine. I could use a break. What’s up?”

“I,” Judge carefully tests the words out in his head, tries to imagine them on his tongue, tries to imagine them in Kore’s ears, “I missed you.”

It comes out sounding a little like a question but Kore overlooks this with practiced ease.

“How’s Cetus?”

“Loud,” Judge says and Kore grimaces. They both went down together to explore but Kore quickly grew tired of it and returned to orbiting Earth in her ship. “Punk and Chic say hi.”

Kore grunts and slowly starts to stretch her arms, pulling her right across her body and locking it into place with her left forearm as she twists. There’s a slight pop and Kore lets out a soft sigh.

“I told them you said hi back.”

Kore’s mouth twitches up, and amusement flickers in her eyes.

“Hey.”

Kore tilts her head as she switches to stretch the other arm, slowly rolling her neck as she does so.

“Close your eyes and give me your hand? Please.”

Kore turns to look at him, looking a little confused at the sudden request. But Kore doesn’t ask, Kore shrugs and closes her eyes, and holds her hand out to him. So much trust.

It makes Judge dizzy with it.

He quickly puts the jar he had been hiding behind his back into her hand. And after a moment of nerves, drags together the courage of trust tight around himself and uses the tips of his gloved fingers to curl hers around the jar.

“Okay, um. That’s it. You can open your eyes.”

Kore opens them and looks down at the jar, frowning as she turns it over in her hands. It’s not very large, one of Kore’s hands can almost fully close around the circumference of it.

“What is this?” She asks.

“It’s called jam,” Judge says. Chic had given him some with a little bit of bread. It was alarmingly sweet but it had a strange tang to it. “Made from something called peaches. It’s not a lot, but I think you’d like it. It smells nice, too.”

Kore twists the top of the jar off and tentatively raises it to her nose and sniffs, her eyelashes flutter and it’s like he can feel the ghost of them in his chest. Kore’s smile grows a little bit more.

“It smells sweet, and like - sun,” Kore says slowly and then she touches her finger to the metal top, quickly swiping off a bit of the jam stuck there and licks it. Her eyes widen, “It’s good.”

Judge feels the smile on his face, the relief of knowing she likes it.

“Good,” He says. Neither of them are particularly good at words. They are people of action, different kinds of action sure, but action still.

Kore smiles at him and then her smile falters, “But what is this  _for_?”

Judge swallows softly and says, “I never thanked you - not properly - for the gum.”

“Judge, that was ages ago.”

“I’m really late at finding something equal to give in thanks,” Judge says, hunching his shoulders.

Kore quickly closes the jar and sets it down. “You don’t need to thank me for that. And I haven’t been expecting it this entire time.”

“I know. I just. I wanted,” Judge says. “I wanted to.”

And he tasted the jam and he smelled the way it smelled of soft sunlight filtered through layers of green canopy and he felt the cool glass in his hands and he looked at the strange amber of it in the light of the sun through Earth’s atmosphere and he wanted to give it to her. It looked a little like soft, liquid embers in a little jar.

He wanted to bring the sun in a jar to her.

Judge doesn’t say that.

He just repeats, “I wanted to.”

And Kore, she might not know the exact words running through his head faster and more clever than his mouth can grasp, but - but Kore knows the intent. She can get a summary of it.

“Thank you,” Kore says, mouth soft and face glowing, “I’m excited to eat it.”


	39. Chapter 39

“Ordis thinks that it is good for the Operator to make friends.”

Kore wordlessly point over her shoulder at the Incubator.

“Ordis thinks that is good for the Operator to make friends in a non-literal fashion.”

Kore scowls down at her toenails as she carefully applies paint to them. It’s a small, frivolous action. There are better things to be spending credits on, especially since no one ever sees her toenails except herself, Ordis, her various non-bipedal companions, and Judge.

The paint is dark red and is almost an exact match for her favorite red pigment for her warframes. It looks almost black against the paleness of her foot and the dark coloring of her ship.

“Can you make the lights warmer real quick?” Kore asks, and Ordis adjusts the lights appropriately. Kore turns her foot, examining it for any potential flaws.

She hears the specter unit before she sees it, and Orids sits down in front of her, gently grasping her ankle in the specter’s hand and holding out the other hand for the paint brush.

Kore hands it to him, leaning over to watch Ordis fix up the uneven parts she can’t see.

“Ordis still thinks that the Operator is well served by making multiple friendships with other sentient beings that are not Ordis, things that hatch from an egg and leave fur and dander and all sorts of unspeakable detritus on Ordis, and Tenno Judge.”

“Noted,” Kore says, and wonders if she should ask him to do her fingers, next. Ordis has steady hands by the way of a perfect lack of a real nervous system that would cause minute tremors.

“Ordis has been doing research on these other Tenno, Operator,” Ordis continues. “Would the Operator like to see what Ordis has found?”

“Sure,” She’s stuck with drying paint anyway.

Ordis pulls up some information on some displays and Kore skims over them. Nothing here is really going to change her mind.

She does note that Punk really was one of the original Ember units like she was, and that overall he wasn’t too bad at it, based on the limited data Ordis was able to pull from admittedly much degraded and fragmented archives.

“They aren’t friends, Ordis. They’re -  _acquaintances_.”

In Punk’s case,  _mistakes_.

“Allies,” Ordis firmly corrects. Kore raises an eyebrow without looking away from the screens. It doesn’t matter where she is or where she looks. Ordis will see or sense it anyway. She lives inside of him, after all.

There’s a touch more Karris than usual that rises up through the Ordis’ voice modulator as he continues, “If Operator wishes, refer to them as allies. Allies serve better than acquaintances.”

“Until they start asking for things.”

“Favors go both ways. It is good to deal in being the one  _doing_  rather than  _taking_.”

“Hmmm,” Kore hums, and the specter releases her foot, resting it on its thigh before reaching up and holding out its hand. Kore gives the specter her hand and it begins work on her fingers. “Depends on the favors.”

The sound that comes through the speakers can’t be considered a hum because Ordis doesn’t have lips. It’s more of an electronic drag.

“Ordis will points out that the Operator has already asked for favors.”

Kore clicks her tongue. She didn’t ask.

“And that just because the Operator didn’t verbally ask does not mean a favor was not done.”

“I wish you didn’t think like me,” Kore says. “Or that I didn’t think like you. Whichever.”

Ordis is pointedly silent.

Punk and Chic took care of Judge on Cetus. They still take care of Judge on Cetus. As Kore has no taste for interacting with other people in general - too many memories, too many sensations, too much all at once, too fast - Kore has been somewhat forced into trusting Judge and his…current mental and emotional struggles and his lapses with other people.

Judge has been better. He’s also been worse.

It isn’t possible or right to monitor Judge constantly. It does no one any favors, Judge least of all.

But she also knows that it helps to have someone close at hand. Just in case.

Kore, at this moment, is not close at hand.

And there are just some things Judge can’t say to her. Just like there are things she cannot say to him. At least, not yet.

Perhaps not ever.

In this instance, she thinks she can understand. Or start to.

“Allies,” Kore repeats. The word echoes in her mouth. She thinks about Ballas. Ballas didn’t make allies or acquaintances or friends. He made enemies and servants and devout sycophants. Ballas made fans and copycats. Ballas made slaves.

The word is familiar for all that it hasn’t ever really been used in her mouth before.

 _Allies_.

And her mind slides back, like liquid, like oil, like venom, to a time made of gold.

Lessons drilled into her not because of necessity but because of aesthetics. A pet who knows Old Earth’s most prestigious language. A pet who could recite on demand. A pet who could make witty comments and could perform as if it was a real thing.

Kore closes her eyes.

Allies, a voice that isn’t hers or Ballas’ says. A voice that is mechanic, a recording, a recitation that is drilled into her and all her other fellow Tenno’s heads under Ballas’ command.  _Allies, from alligare, meaning bind together. Alligare becomes Old French, aller and alle. Sharing the same root as “alloy”. To bind together._

“Ally,” Kore repeats out loud. “It suits. For now.”

The specter unit nods, gently turning her hand as if examining its work. Ordis has eyes all over this ship, she doubts that he needs to actually turn her hand seeing as he can see from every angle.

After the Stalker broke in Ordis installed so many new cameras Kore’s surprised that he hasn’t started clearing room for extra servers to handle the data. Or maybe he has and she just hasn’t figured out where it is yet.

“Is the lecture done for the day, Ordis?” Kore asks, half teasing.

“Far be it for Ordis to lecture his Operator,” Ordis says, Karris woven in like copper, like ribbons of red, “It was merely Ordis’ humble opinion.”

“Mhm.  _Right_. Consider your opinion appreciated, then.”


	40. Chapter 40

“Wait, so are you two — are you friends now?” Judge asks, incredulous as he looks between Kore, who’s dragging Punk behind her by the back of his neck.

“No,” Is Kore’s immediate and predictable response

“ _No_ ,” is Punk’s slightly unexpected and solemn answer.

Judge turns to Chic. Chic shrugs as she helps Kore shove Punk into the extraction pod.

“We’re  _best_  friends,” Punk says. “We bonded over Kuva.”

“Disgusting, I bet you have kuva stains all over your suit again,” Chic sneers, as she steps into her unit, her extraction pod slowly rotating and detaching. “I’m not washing that.”

“Did you know Kore looks a lot like your warframes? It’s like someone made a little person out of your warframe, Chic,” Punk continues as his follows suit.

Judge turns to stare at Kore as she calmly steps into her own extraction unit and switches to their private channel, “You  _came out to Punk?”_

“We bonded over kuva,” Kore says with a note of finality. Unfortunately, Judge doesn’t think he’s going to be able to hold himself in line over this one.

“I thought you were going to murder me when I first saw you?  _You just -_ explain it to me.”

“I think Punk explained it very succinctly,” Kore says. He can hear the visible raise of her eyebrow. “We bonded over kuva. He thinks it tastes peppery. I don’t know what pepper is. It tastes like fizz-cola that’s gone lukewarm and flat. I don’t like the taste.”

“You  _ate kuva?_ ”

“Drank. It’s a liquid.”

“ _You drank kuva?_  Why? Who -  _who does that_? Why would you put that inside of you?”

“Hades, are you going to stand here in the middle of this ship that we just set on  _fire_  to talk about kuva or can we take this to a ship that  _isn’t on fire_?”

“I - no - I mean -  _yes, we’re talking about it and you aren’t going to distract me_ ,” Judge says, quickly fastening his Mag to his extraction pod. He feels Mag’s limbs get locked into place and he quickly releases himself from her, coming to in the transference chamber of his own ship. Scylla switches the com’s audio to the ship’s system.

“I knew I liked you for a reason, Persephone, you have excellent taste,” Chic is saying, “Your frames? Always so spot on. Now I know why Hades’ frames are a disaster but his actual suit is tolerable.”

Kore still speaks through a random synthesizer around Chic and Punk - random, just to make sure they don’t catch on and isolate her voice through some sort of scrambler. Judge is fairly sure neither tenno is that invested in figuring out Kore’s real voice, but Kore’s mind works in strange ways.

“He’s spent so much credits and platinum and ducats on the worst visual choices,” Kore says, “And somehow everyone thinks he’s the brain between us.”

“It’s probably because no one ever sees you do anything other than hack and slash at stuff,” Judge says.

“As opposed to you? Fool who rushes in and ruins every single one of my shots?”

“Ooooh, lover’s tiff,” Punk laughs.

“You’re one to talk,” Chic huffs, “How many times have I had to abandon an objective because I had to run back and save your useless ass?”

“But you  _like_  my useless ass.”

“It’s shapely,” Chic says. “Useless, but shapely and it costs me credits.”

“It’s very high maintenance.”

“Is anyone going to explain to me how you became friends?” Judge interrupts before things can get too far off track.

“Jealous I’m gonna steal your girl?”

Chic bursts out into loud, speaker-crackling laughter, “Stars, Punk, you little idiot. If anything, Persephone is going to steal  _your_  girl.”

Punk gasps, “ _You’re leaving me? For her?”_

And then he pauses, “No, wait. That’s fair. I’d leave me for her.

“No one is leaving anyone for anyone else,” Judge says, “You two are  _friends_?”

“We drank kuva,” Kore says, “That’s hardly a prerequisite for friendship.”

“We argued over flavor.”

“He’s probably been concussed multiple times, I think it broke his flavor palate,” Kore says.

“But you don’t know what a pepper is, so you can’t say it  _isn’t peppery_.”

“I know what flat fizz-cola is, and kuva tastes like it.”

“Have either of you two considered that it tastes different to different people?”

“Why would you even drink it?” That’s the part right after  _Punk and Kore are friends_ that’s really getting him. “That stuff is - it’s like - incredibly dangerous? Possibly sentient on its own?”

“Well, what else are you supposed to do with it?” Punk asks, “Throw it away? Cause environmental damage? Possibly poison some poor animal?”

“So your solution was to poison  _yourself?!”_

“You do whatever you want with your kuva,” Kore says, “And I’ll do whatever I want with mine.”

“I thought you threw yours out!”

“You  _thought_ , but you never asked.”

“Why would I ask you if you  _drank the poison_?”

“Well don’t just  _assume I didn’t_  and get weird about it when you’re wrong,” Kore says. “I drank it. Not my problem if you just  _assumed_  I didn’t. I mean, you weren’t there. Why would you know?”

“Because I know you and I know that you’d never put yourself as beholden to anything? And drinking kuva is pretty much that?”

“Not if you control it,” Punk and Kore say at the same time.

“Don’t get started on this,” Chic says, “Trust me. Just - just  _don’t_.”

“But — “

“ _Don’t_. We’ll be here  _forever_  and I have credits to earn and parts to trade,” Chic says. “Just let them drink their garbage juice.”

“Garbage juice…that made them friends.”

“We  _aren’t friends_.”

“We’re best - “

“ _No_.”

“Mean.”

Kore clicks out of the com’s with an unnecessary and audible static feedback.

“Now that’s just petty,” Punk says. “I love it. She’s just like you, but like - pastel.”

“I love it,” Chic agrees, “But stop baiting her because she’ll shred you and I’ll just watch because you earned it.”

“Again,  _petty_. I love it.”


	41. Chapter 41

Nezha's optics are almost completely disguised in its helmet so it’s not like Judge can say he can see Kore glaring at him. But Nezha’s head is turned to him and Judge is getting that feeling in what Kore call’s his soul. It’s a very Kore-specific feeling.

Judge admits to himself that he has a very large amount of Kore-specific feelings. If you were to make them physical and tangible his Orbiter would be twice as crowded as it was when he had all of his stuff, before Kore helped him clean up the place into something slightly less horrifically jam-packed. Judge is very glad you can’t see or touch feelings. He thinks he might scare Kore if she could see the density and volume of that mass.

This specific Kore feeling tells him she’s giving him this look through her warframe, as if to say -  _do you see this? Are you seeing what is happening to me right now?_

If Judge chooses to really think on it, he’d say it reminds him of how Handsome looks sometimes when Handsome is particularly displeased by some occurrence going on around them. Handsome usually follows this look up with angry, unstoppable, unavoidable yowling.

“Hades,” Kore says softly, flatly, “What is she doing?”

Punk punches him in the back before he can answer and says quickly through a private channel, “Don’t answer that.  _Don’t answer that_.”

Judge chooses to keep his mouth shut, for once in his life and he thinks Kore would be proud of him for learning if he wasn’t learning against her.

“Your streamer-things,” Chic says, arranging said streamer-things, “Are a  _mess_. I’m fixing them.”

“By who’s  _leave_?”

“By  _who’s leave_ ,” Chic repeats laughing, jostling Kore’s Nezha frame, “Who talks like that?”

“Empress and Alpha,” Punk says.

“Damn, right, but that’s different. They’re like -  _better than us_.”

Kore bristles and Judge can’t help but frown, scrunching up his nose.

No one can see it, but he thinks somehow it translates through his silence because Punk slings an arm around his shoulder, a little awkward because Ember is a bit shorter than Inaros.

“No, really. It’s a given fact. It’s not an insult. I’m pretty sure that the reason the Orokin didn’t fuck with them so much was because they were scared. All you need to do is look at their energy trail and  _know_. That’s beyond a Tenno. That’s -  _god?_ ”

Judge and Kore exchange skeptical feelings. Judge would say glances, but again, no real eyes.

“Wait, do you mean - “ Kore says, pausing, “Do you mean  _the Empress_?”

“The?” Judge repeats under his breath because if even Kore knows about this person then they must be the real thing but Judge has no idea who these call signs are. They’re kind of pretentious.

Then again, his call sign is Hades, mythological god of the Underworld.

He guesses he has no room to talk about  _pretentious call signs_.

“Yeah,” Punk says, “I mean. There isn’t more than one.”

Kore goes very still. A true feat considering that she wasn’t really moving much to start with.

Chic calmly continues untangling and straightening out Nezha’s streamers.

“You know  _the_  Empress? You’ve  _spoken_  to  _the_  Empress?”

“Yeah,” Punk says, “She’s my mentor.”

The sound that comes through the channels from Kore’s completely still Nezha could best be described as organic static feedback.

“Are you okay in there?” Punk asks, tentatively reaching forward and poking Nezha’s arm with his fingertip before retreating behind Judge. Punk, too, is also learning and Judge thinks Kore would be deeply pleased with this if he weren’t witnessing what sounds like her untimely, unexpected, and deeply unnerving demise.

“Kore?” Judge calls through their private channel. “Kore?”

He wonders if the Empress is someone Kore’s trying to avoid. Like she was trying to avoid Punk. He wonders what she did.

“ _He knows the Empress_ ,” Kore says, voice strangled like she wants to say thirty different things at once and isn’t sure on which sentence should leave her first. “Judge! Judge! He knows  _the Empress_.”

“Girly?” Chic tugs at one of Nezha’s streamers. “You in there?”

“The Empress!  _The actual Empress!_ ” Kore continues in the private channel.

To Judge’s immense surprise and slight discomfort, she  _squeals_.

“He’s being  _taught by the Empress!_ ” Kore says, “ _Void and stars and solar flares, Judge._  The Empress was so amazing during the old war, all of us in the Saryn unit  _dreamed_  of being like her. Judge, did you know that Ballas would leave her to entire  _colonies_? He’d just have her drop at one colony and he’d trust her to get from there to like - the next outpost by herself. No help or any real monitoring needed. No back up. I heard that once she cleansed an entire coastal line of Infested in three days. Three days! Just by using  _one spore_. She kept the single spore going for  _three days_.”

Judge stares at Kore’s Nezha, realization slowly dawning on him. A realization he can’t seem to comprehend.

“Kore,” Judge repeats softly but she’s still going.

“There was a rumor that she was the  _real_  Saryn tenno, Saryn-000. But her code was Saryn-002. And they also had her deploy as an Ember sometimes but I think she was an Excalibur first, like me, but she was also a Nekros a lot, too. I can’t believe she’s Punk’s mentor, Judge.  _Do you think we’ll get to meet her one day?_ ”

“Kore,  _you’re a fan_ ,” Judge says as Chic waves her hand in front of Nezha’s face. “Also I think you’re scaring them.”

You’re scaring  _me_.

Kore switches back to their party channel and her voice synthesizer, “The Empress is your mentor and you still fight like that?”

“He says mentor, what he really means is that sometimes she drops by to come along on our missions and laugh at him,” Chic says. “I feel so bad for the Alpha because he has to actually save Punk’s ass from behind handed to him single-handedly. But listen, I need a break too, okay? And watching the Alpha work?  _Oomph_. Chef’s kiss. He doesn’t even need a warframe, I swear.”


	42. Chapter 42

“What is on your head that isn’t your hair?” Chic asks, baffled and Judge feels the tips of his ears burn.

“It’s a hat,” He says, “Can’t you tell?”

“It looks like garbage,” Chic says.

Chic, the tenno, looks a lot like Chic, the warframes.

Her hair is pink. Not like Kore’s pale pink. It’s a very vivid, eye catching,  _loud_  pink. And there’s a lot of it. Just a huge mass of pink curls that fluffs out like a violent cloud. Judge thinks Kore would find that pink cloud very intimidating if she were on Cetus to see it.

Chic stares at him, at the hat, and Judge doesn’t think it’s warranted. It’s a nice hat.

“It has a mask, too,” Judge says, and then promptly puts the mask on.

Chic’s face quickly twists in disgust, “ _Ugh_. Take it off. I didn’t think it could get worse, but it  _did_. Did you pay actual  _currency_  for that?”

“It’s nice. I like it!”

“Stars, I should’ve known from your frames that it’d be this bad. But overall your other tenno suits looked fine and I figure that Persephone’s a girl with taste and she wouldn’t be caught dead with you if -  _oh_ ,” Chic blinks, “She’s basically your self control isn’t she?”

“What?”

“Does Persephone color your suits for you?” Chic asks.

“Yes?” Judge answers. Judge used to color his own but one day he came back to his ship and Scylla had told him that Kore had come onboard and replaced all of his suits with new ones and she’d thrown the old ones into the incinerator. Judge didn’t really care because his old ones were getting tight and the new ones fit really well. He was, at the time, mostly interested in figuring out where the incinerator was.

“Bless that girl, she’s probably some sort of star made flesh,” Chic says, “She can fight, she can dress an idiot, what can’t she do? Alright, since she’s not here I guess I’ll have to do this. And I thought the only baby I had to manage was  _Punk_.”

“I’m not - what are you? Do what?”

“Take care of you so that you don’t go around looking like an accident of severe proportions,” Chic says, “Take the hat off. I’m going to fix this. I can fix this. Besides, I feel like I owe Persephone this much. Or maybe it’s a gift for her future self. Whatever. Take the hat off and give it to me.”

“No,” Judge says, baffled, but finds himself taking it off and handing it to her anyway. “I like that hat.”

Chic throws it like a frisbee and Punk’s Kubrow goes running after it. Punk’s Kubrow seems to like following Chic around more than he likes following his own tenno.

Judge gapes.

“You are a very cute boy,” Chic says nodding to herself, “But you mess it up by making very bad choices all around. Physically. Probably mentally and emotionally too, but right now I mean physically.”

“I paid for that,” Judge says.

“You’ll get it back eventually,” Chic says, “Though I can’t believe you wasted real life currency on that. Don’t tell me how much. If I know I’ll start doubting your competence more than I already do and it wouldn’t be good for our teamwork.”

Judge frowns. There’s - so much there to comment on.

“And you work with  _Punk_?”

It’s…not really anything against Punk, but his general overall battle competency unless he’s working in a very, very specific situation is doubtful at its best of times and downright horrific at its average. Unspeakable at its worst.

“I know what to expect from him,” Chic says, “You? Now I’ll forever be wondering if it’s competence, dumb luck, or a fluke.”

Kore’s voice, in Judge’s head, says  _the fool rushes in_  and Judge sullenly admits Chic is probably actually wrong and it’s entirely the grace of a higher power (Kore) mixed with extreme good luck.

“Now, Persephone’s already got you set up with black and magenta, so let’s build up from there. I don’t know why you thought adding on  _bright green_  would do you any favors, but whatever. I’ve worked with worse.”

-

“What do you think?” Kore asks and Judge stares at her newly colored Rhino.

“Are you ok? Ordis, what is your Operator’s current biometric read out? Have there been any flaws? Any unusual readings? Has she been anywhere strange recently?” Judge asks, standing up and quickly striding over to her, trying to take a good look at her eyes for any bloodshot-redness or burst vessels or  _anything_. It’s actually a little challenging to take someone’s vitals without touching them, but -

Judge’s eyes widen and he backs away covering his nose and mouth, “ _Ordis, can you do a scan for any airborne pathogens_?”

“Belay that,” Kore says, scowling at him, “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with  _me_?” Judge asks as he points to the Rhino, “What’s wrong with  _you_? Kore,  I know you. If anyone else colored a Rhino like that you would rather die than be seen in the same atmosphere as them. And you’re telling me that you’re going to go out in that on purpose?”

Kore frowns, and instead of looking hurt or mad she looks disappointed, “So it isn’t believable?”

“What isn’t believable?”

“That I sincerely thought these looked good?”

Judge gapes at her, “ _You want to trick people into thinking you make bad choices_?”

He’s keenly aware of the fact that coming from someone like himself - who’s default colors are an almost brown purple, black, and magenta - that he has no room to talk about aesthetics.

But this is Kore.

“Chic gave you  _three free palettes!_ ” Kore stomps her foot, “Because you can’t choose colors on your own.  _I want free colors too.”_

 _“_ You wanted to pretend to have taken a third go-round Europa because you wanted free colors?” Judge repeats, dumbstruck, “Kore, just ask her for them. She’d probably give them to you for free.”

“I’m not asking her for anything!”

“Do you want  _me_  to ask for you?”

“No!” Kore snaps and then turns to her Rhino, grimacing, “Let’s wash you off, big guy. Come on, we’ll figure something else out.”


	43. Chapter 43

“Does it feel this way for you?” Judge asks, slowly testing the stretch of Valkyr’s legs, the movement of the balls of her feet and the arch of them.

“Explain,” Kore says, in her own Valkyr frame and watching Judge from the top of a pile of Corpus goods. Kore’s Valkyr glows a vivid red over black and blue, the small optic cameras along the sides of Valkyr’s face glitter in the light, a stark contrast against the gray sky.

They’re just waiting for pick up, now. Between the two of them, they’ve covered the entire corpus base in claw marks, half-melted walls, blast zones, and bodies.

Kore led the way, as always, showing Judge how she uses her Valkyr. How she and her Valkyr use each other. He admits to feeling a mixture of both awe, pride, and envy at how effortlessly Kore dispatched so many Corpus.

Judge and his own Valkyr frame are - sending mixed signals at best. Transference is stable, but his thoughts are jumbled and he finds himself going too far, too fast, and crashing, or otherwise getting himself lost even though he  _knows_  how to move. Judge knows deep within himself how Valkyr moves, wants to move. He knows how to move them.

He just can’t get it right.

“I feel - tense,” No. That’s not right. Valkyr’s body is loose. Ready. Primed. The tension is inside, somewhere. The muscles of the stomach, the back, the fingers. “I feel anxious.”

That word also isn’t right and Valkyr’s body seems to harden against it. Resist the idea, restless and unsatisfied. But Judge doesn’t know what words to use instead. He casts out for them but he doesn’t know. He picks at the discontent inside of himself like a hangnail.

“You feel thirsty,” Kore says just as he begins to feel that not-anxiety build up more, pushing a frustrated and hot sigh through his throat, “Parched.”

Valkyr seems to pick up a little at that, latching onto the words. And the sigh disappears, replaced by a ringing absence - a relief after the irritation. For the first time, satisfaction.

Judge doesn’t think he feels thirsty, though.

“Valkyr remembers. We aren’t the Tenno that suffered and died,” Kore continues, examining her claws, “But the frames remember. Don’t you remember? During the war? Valkyr wasn’t like this. Gersemi. Their original models were Gersemi. It wasn’t until after the war, it wasn’t until the Corpus that the Gersemi became called as the Valkyr. The Valkyr frames are all built with based on blueprints of a Gersemi that was tortured. They all remember. It’s built into them, Judge.”

Judge grimaces at the reminder.

But Valkyr’s body warms, like metal, at the words.

“The Valkyr frames are made angry, thirsty,  _ravenous_ ,” Kore continues. “They want to fight. They want to scream. They want to bring pain. They want revenge. And they want it with their own hands, not a weapon, not a gun.”

Kore pauses, “This is probably why you’re having trouble. You like Mesa and Nova and Mag. Long distance.”

Judge wants to point out that Kore also likes long distance - Ember, Saryn, sniper rifles. But then again, he realizes, Kore also loves to be in the thick of it. Kore gets a thrill whenever she kills multiple targets using her blade without anyone ever seeing her. It’s a different sort of thrill for her than her distant assassinations.

“Don’t think, I can’t believe I’m saying that, but just don’t think. Move. Valkyr can handle it. Valkyr can handle anything,” Kore says. “You always moderate your energy output to avoid burning something out. You don’t have to with Valkyr. They’re sturdy. And they burn the energy off just as fast. Valkyr moves on instinct. Like you, sort of.”

“If it’s like me how am I so bad at this then?” Judge asks.

“You’re cataloguing things,” Kore says, “You always do when you’re in a new frame. You’re mentally making notes and stuff. In the actual fights you do okay, it’s just when you’re not fighting and testing things that you and Valkyr start falling out of synch.”

“How else am I supposed to know what to calibrate?”

Kore shrugs.

“How do you do it, then?” Judge asks, sitting down at the base of the crates, leaning against them.

“Valkyr was one of my first frames,” Kore says, “Before I found Saryn again. I don’t use her often unless I need the speed. We aren’t suited for each other.”

Judge can’t help but snort at that.

Kore hits the back of his head with a bit of rock.

“Valkyr feels too much all the time,” Kore says, “And you know how I feel about feelings.”

“Don’t?”

“Exactly. Valkyr is always - Valkyr draws it out in me. I just  _feel_. All my anger and spite and my excitement and my hurt and my pride. Everything. And it makes me want to go, go, go. When I’m in Valkyr it feels like I get tunnel vision and I can’t focus on anything else but how angry or excited I am and the next enemy in front of me and how good it feels to move and exist in that very moment and how much better it will be when I go on to the next opponent,” Kore says. “Valkyr isn’t a very patient frame for me, either. I like using her. We’re compatible in our talents and our distastes. But I can’t use her all the time. I’d get too - wrung out. I guess.”

Judge guesses he can sort of understand what Kore is saying.

“But how do you get what you want and what your frame wants to match up?”

Kore is quiet, speculative and then she shrugs.

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“With Valkyr I  _don’t_. Valkyr knows better than I do what we need to do to get from point A to point B. I can feel the frame guide me, sort of. I mean, it’s not like Valkyr is in total control. That’s not possible. They aren’t sentient to that degree. It’s just that - there’s all this violence built into her. She knows. So I go through the generic motions and I know Valkyr will see me through. There just might be a touch more violence and passion in it than necessarily needed.”


	44. Chapter 44

“There’s been a bed on this stupid ship this  _entire time_?” Kore says, incredulous as she stares past the door into an incredibly decent bedroom. It has a bed. And it looks like it must be connected to the Helminth room somehow, because she recognizes the fish swimming behind the glass as the one she sees lurking in the other room sometimes.

“The room, to Ordis’ knowledge, did not just  _spontaneously_  appear, Operator,” Ordis says and Kore just continues to gape even as Pestilence and Joy squirm past her to start frolicking about the  _bed_  with  _blankets_  and  _bedding_  and  _pillows_  that she’s never slept on once. “Ordis can only assume it has been present since the initial creation.”

“And you  _never told me_?” Kore throws her arms up, gesturing at the nearest camera in the hallway. “I’ve been sleeping on the floor. On rags. On  _scrap material. On my dogs._  Not once did you think to tell me that there was an actual to the Void  _bed_  on this ship? With  _blankets_?”

“Operator,” Ordis doesn’t sound nearly as repentant as Kore would like, “The Operator knows that Ordis has suffered significant damage to Ordis’ memory banks…”

“That I  _repaired ages ago_ ,” Kore snaps, “You did this on  _purpose_.”

Ordis is quiet before there’s an electric disturbance that sounds like warm, coppery laughter if one is used to digital sounds that aren’t supposed to be made being used in conversation.

“Ordis could not help it! The Operator just looked so  _adorable_  curled up on the floor of the orbiter. Ordis could not resist!” Ordis says, the weave of Karris and the Cephalon he is now braids together like copper, warm and promising too much entertainment on Kore’s behalf for Kore’s comfort.

“So you let me sleep on the floor because it was  _cute_?” Kore scowls, stomping into the room and trying to shove her kavats off of the bed before they shred it. She smooths the covers back down and lies over them, the two kavats immediately start to tussle over her before settling into some sort of agreement. The Plague curls up on Kore’s right, head wedged into Kore’s neck, paws kneading at Kores’ shoulder as Joy curls up on Kore’s left, upper body over Kore’s legs. “The floor isn’t comfortable, Ordis. I’d go so far as to say it’s  _terrible as a sleeping surface._ ”

“Please forgive Ordis, Operator. It has been so long since Ordis has gone through biological sleep cycles and felt physical discomfort that Ordis must have forgotten,” Karris is closer to the surface and Kore scowls viciously at the ceiling.

“There is an incoming message from Tenno Judge, shall Ordis answer it?” Ordis says as Kore sulks at the ceiling of her ship. His voice has eased off on the mocking edge and into something more professional, and a touch of apology.

“Yeah, fine,” Kore says, eyes narrowing a little when the light of a display hologram lights up next to her. “Judge, did you know that these ships have bedrooms?”

“They have what?”

“Bedrooms. Sleeping quarters. Like, actual quarters designed for the sole purpose of lying down and resting,” Kore says, gesturing at the screen to do a slow turn and take in the room. “Go ask your Cephalon.”

Judge is quiet for about three seconds before he says, very calmly and softly, “I’m going to call you back.”

“You do that,” Kore says and the connection cuts.

She scratches the Blight under the chin as the creature mewls.

“There is another message from Tenno Judge,” Ordis says.

Kore waves her hand and the display returns.

“ _There’s a bedroom on the orbiter_ ,” Judge says and when Kore turns her head to look he’s standing in the hallway that would lead to the bedroom, supposing that their ships have the same layout. They should. “I can’t get into it because Handsome made it her lair.”

“Meaning?”

Judge grimaces and turns the screen. Kore makes a loud gagging sound.

The room is trashed, covered in garbage, and a Kore can see a suspicious stain that looks like kavat vomit.

“Operator, please!” Scylla cries, “Do not…Do not…Do not show Tenno Kore the state of the orbiter! S-s-s-s-cylla swears that Scylla thought Operator knew about this room and left it to the kavat! P-Please, Operator, do not punish Scylla with this humiliation!”

The screen turns back to facing Judge.

“Scylla thought I knew about this room and willingly chose to sleep on the floor,” Judge says, completely deadpan. “Scylla, I’m not punishing you for not telling me. Calm down.”

“Well, at least yours didn’t tell you out of a harmless assumption,” Kore says. “Ordis, why don’t you tell Judge why  _you_  didn’t tell me there’s a bedroom on this ship?”

Judge’s eyebrows raise in anticipation.

Ordis does not disappoint.

In a very prim, proud, and deeply amused voice Ordis replies, “Ordis believes that the Operator looks very sweet when sleeping curled up on the main floors.”

“He thought back pain as cute, Judge,” Kore says, “He thought it was  _cute_.”

Judge’s mouth crumples into a strange line, “He’s not wrong.”

“ _Judge_ ,” Kore turns her head to give him the full strength of her gaze, “Not you too.”

“But you  _do_  look really…cute?” Judge says, a wry twist to his lips, “You tuck yourself up real small with your hands at your face and it’s - “

Kore rolls over away from the screen causing the Plague to whine, roll over and squeeze against Kore’s back, paws kneading at her shoulders, claws catching on the suit. Joy flicks her tail and adjusts accordingly.

“Don’t sulk.”

“I’m not sulking, I’m just thinking about how I’m surrounded in terrible turn-coats.”

“What’s a turn-coat?”

Kore blinks, “I think it means traitor. Some sort of Old Earth expression.”

“Oh. I’m not a traitor, I’m just saying that maybe Ordis has a point.”

“That’s exactly what makes you a traitor.”

“Well, at least Ordis didn’t let anything into your room to mess it up. I don’t even know if I can salvage this room or if it’s lost forever to Handsome.”


	45. Chapter 45

“Again,” Kore demands, staring into the Lotus’ mask. “Tell me again.”

Judge paces in front of her, glad for once, for the confines of his Orbiter. The darkness and the contract of blue and black. Somehow it seems  _grounding_. Tangible. Real.

“I told you, Kore,” Judge says, because he has. At least half a dozen times now he’s told her the details of it. “He called her Margulis. She took his hand. They left together. There was nothing else I could find there. It was him, Kore. She said it was Ballas.”

“Ballas is dead,” Kore says, staring into what was once the face they assigned to the Lotus. “We killed him.”

 _The Saryns killed him_ , Judge hears. He remembers it. Each of them, beautiful and blinding white and golden as they turned and cast their poison back onto their maker. Their master.

“The Orokin had access to technology we’re still trying to uncover and bring back,” Judge reminds her. “The Grineer have a rather failed cloning process, is it so unbelievable that the Orokin had a more sustainable one? And remember the Queens? The Orokin could take over bodies, too. It makes sense. Remember? The Lotus was once a Sentient. She could have taken over Margulis. It’s not unfeasible. Ballas and Margulis could still linger. We did, after all.”

Kore shakes her head, voice sharp, “No. That’s - that doesn’t work. The Queens had a sharp decay. It changed them, twisted them…And the cloning process doesn’t account for memories. Ballas couldn’t have survived. His mind would have been gone.”

“Ordan Karris,” Judge says. It is not meant to be unkind.

Kore’s mouth pulls down tight.

“Cephalon Simaris, Cephalon Sueda,” Judge continues to try and soften the initial blow. “My own Cephalon, most likely. Though we don’t know who she was before. Though we might never know.”

“That’s - he wouldn’t. The process of creating a Cephalon would - “

“He doesn’t have to create a cephalon with his brain scan,” Judge says. “He could just have backups of his memories.”

“You can’t clone a soul.”

“I’m not talking about a soul.”

“You’re talking about a ghost,” Kore says, “For all we know it’s just advanced Void Poisoning.”

Kore definitely says that to be unkind.

Judge takes the blow. She’s given him a foundation to stand on. He likes to think she knows better than to think that something like that could knock it away.

“Then why was this there? Why was there a room that was Lotus themed, with the exact same ports? Why?” Judge challenges and Kore hunches her shoulders, eyes squeezing shut against a truth that neither of them saw coming.

Judge admits that he’s never fully trusted the Lotus. He’s always found her…suspicious. She’s always there, in the center of things. Like a spider. He still doesn’t know if the Tenno are meant to be her web, or things caught in it. He’s never trusted her fully, but this is something he never even could have considered.

Kore doesn’t trust many people but she trusted the Lotus. Kore might not have particularly liked the Lotus’ attempts at being maternal, but Judge thinks that Kore did appreciate the company during the long silences between stars and dreams. Judge thinks that the Lotus might not have taken the coveted space of  _mother_ in Kore’s mind, but maybe something just as important to her.

“When the Lotus was Natah she was meant to become our watcher, our guide, our handler,” Judge says, leaning against his mod station arms crossed as he stares at the foundry. Kore sits on the ramp leading up to his observation deck, the Lotus’ face held between her hands as she tries to find a way out of this truth.

It is unlike her, Judge thinks, to try and desperately avoid something this blatant. And it’s strange to be the one having to make someone awake and aware.

“We don’t know what happened to Margulis’ body. For all we know that was it. Or maybe the Sentients also had cloning technology. If they wanted someone to handle the Tenno, it would make sense to craft her form into something familiar to us. Similar to Margulis, our only champion among the Orokin. An almost maternal figure.”

“No,” Kore shakes her head, neck bowed, pink hair falling as she rests her head against the front of what used to be the Lotus’ mask.

“Perhaps there were some memory fragments of Margulis floating around. They did that as punishment sometimes, like with Karris”

“Stop,” Kore says, voice shaking. “Why do you want this to be true so badly? Why can’t it just be - something else? Why does it have to be this? Why do you want this?”

Judge stares at her, confused by this sudden -

“I  _don’t_  want it to be that, but right now that’s what it looks like,” Judge says, “Kore, these are the facts and I’m just trying to - “

“To make Ballas real again?” Kore snaps, abruptly and violently throwing down the Lotus’ mask. It clatters over the Orbiter floor, bouncing and then rolling away. Kore stands up, fists clenched, face twisted with anger. “To bring back Margulis? To turn the Lotus into a traitor against us? No. I don’t believe it. There was something you missed. Maybe it was an illusion like that one time in the Derelict, with the clones. Or maybe it was Void poisoning made more intense by being on Lua surrounded in dreamers. I don’t know, but it can’t be  _ghosts_.”

“Kore,” Judge starts, standing up straight, arms falling to his sides as Kore’s fists begin to glow golden. “ _Kore_.”

“It’s not  _Ballas_ ,” Kore says, voice cracking like rock, like a dry branch, like bone. “It’s not Ballas, Judge. I don’t care what you saw, it wasn’t Ballas.”

“Why can’t it be Ballas?” Judge replies, feeling the buzz of his own void energy gathering around him as the taste of Kore’s fills the air, a wave of pressure that Judge pushes back with his own. “Out of all the impossible things we’ve seen and done and learned of, why is this the one that pushes you over?”

“ _Because if it’s Ballas then I’m the one who brought him back_ ,” Kore snaps, the final seam. And then, Kore starts to cry.


	46. Chapter 46

There is only one thing that comes to mind when Judge sees how Kore’s redesigned her Ember frame and that’s -

“Spicy honey,” Judge says as he watches, as if they are in slow motion, as Kore approaches them.

Punk and Chic’s lines break out into peals of laughter and Judge feels his heart hammer in his chest, mouth dry, and palms sweat.

Mesa channels this distinct and strange new discomfort that’s hit him very suddenly by shifting their weight on their feet and warming up their guns. Judge isn’t sure if he wants to turn around and run or if he wants to let Kore wash over him like the inevitable.

“I thought you said we don’t eat spicy honey,” Punk says and Judge hears Chic hit him upside the head -

“They’re too young for that, doofus. He just thinks she’s really pretty. Can you blame him? Oomph. Perfection. Persephone you’ve done it again. If only one  _fourth_  of the Tenno still active had your taste, I swear it would make the entire galaxy a brighter place.”

“Thanks,” Kore says, running fine-tipped fingers down the back of Judge’s Kubrow. “Can we get to work now?”

“Spicey honey,” Judge repeats, dumbstruck. Kore ignores him in favor of giving Midas a scratch underneath his huge jaws and telling Midas that he’s a beautiful and dangerous boy who’s going to have a riot of a time ripping Corpus apart limb from limb. “ _Spicy honey_.”

“Spicy chicken more like,” Punk says, “I really need to look into getting that Ember design. I mean. That  _mullet_. Is it on  _fire_?”

“It’s not a  _mullet_ ,” Kore says and then quietly, turning towards Chic, “Which one is a mullet? Wait, chickens are the ones that come from dinosaurs, right?”

“Whatever it is, if you have it you’re making it work and I approve entirely,” Chic says. “Lookin’ good, Persephone.”

There was an incident about two or so weeks back in which they were at a Grineer weapons factory. And the four of them had found a very large room where the Grineer were melting down scrap and various metals to create new things.

As everyone else in the facility was either dead or dying, they felt that they could explore without any pressing urgency. If any alarm beacons went out it would still take maybe two or so hours for assistance to reach.

The four of them watched the machines go on without any minders, for the moment wonderfully autonomous and self-driven.

“Hey,” Punk had said, gesturing out at the orange-gold liquid metal, “You know. That kind of looks like that stuff from plants. The sticky parts that are under the bark? Or the thing that comes from…what’re they called? Bees?”

“Honey,” Judge had supplied. He remembers that the heat was uncomfortable to him in his Harrow. “They have whole jars of it on Cetus. It’s used to make things sweet.”

“I’ve had some before,” Kore had said. She did not clarify when. “I like it. It’s harvested from bees. Something to do with flowers. I think. I can’t remember.”

“Yeah, it’s bee food,” Chic confirmed, “Some of the other settlements have bee colonies on their ships. They’re super rare off-planet, though, and really valuable. Liquid gold. One ampule can cost up to a hundred thousand credits. I’ve seen it go for higher among more disparate crowds. Some people trade in it and they do really well.”

“That’s really amazing,” Judge shook his head. “It’s just…flavoring. Blue or red flavor works fine.”

“Green flavor,” Kore murmured under her breath.

Punk stepped out of his warframe and approached, uncaring of the heat and then he turned to them, pointing at the metal and said, “That’s spicy honey.”

“ _No_ ,” Chic had said, also stepping out of her warframe and snatching Punk’s hand and smacking him upside the head. “You are not eating molten metal just because you think it looks like  _spicy honey_.”

Judge had just finished rolling his eyes when Kore had stepped forward in her warframe - then a Nidus - and tilted her head. And then suddenly Nidus’ head expanded and unfolded into its many, many slightly disturbing parts and she said, “ _Spicy honey_.”

Punk beamed and twisted his wrist out of Chic’s grip, stepping closer to Kore as the two started to chant, “ _Spicy honey_.”

“No,” Judge and Chic had said, dragging their counterparts away as the two cackled.

(Later, Judge had asked Kore again, “Are you sure the two of you aren’t friends?”

“No,” Kore said firmly and then paused, eyes flicking upwards as she frowned, “Allies? Allies. Yeah. Allies. Probably.”

“Are you just bonding over things you might possibly ingest but shouldn’t?”

Kore shrugged, “I still don’t know what he means by  _peppery_.”)

“She’s - you’re,” Judge starts and stops repeatedly as he trails behind Kore, staring at the back of her head. There is indeed a very small flame resting at the top of a curl of gold. “You’re actual spicy honey.”

Kore’s silence is so pointed that Judge can physically feel it digging into his ribs. Kore’s Helios flashes at him, blinking its lights before going over to bother Chic’s Dethcube by scanning the thing directly in its optic sensor a few dozen times over until Dethcube tries to shoot it.

“That’s a compliment,” Chic says, “An aura of deliciousness and untouchable temptation.”

“I don’t want to be delicious,” Kore says flatly. “That’s cannibalism.”

“Not that kind of delicious,” Punk says, “I know that we all are aging at different rates and stuff, but…seriously?”

“Let them continue on this path of innocence,” Chic says, “I want to see how this plays out naturally.”

Meanwhile, Judge has somewhat caught up to Kore and is considering if he should try and touch Ember’s shoulder. Will he burst into fire? He’s never burst into fire just by touching her before, but for some reason he thinks he would now.

“I like it,” Judge manages to say, “You look…”

“Like spicy honey,” Kore says, the faintest curl to the synthetic voice she’s using tipping him off to her deep amusement, “I get it. Thanks. I think.”

“Pretty,” Judge says. It sounds lame even to his own ears. “I - you look pretty, Kore.”

Ember actually pauses and turns to look at Mesa for that and then slowly looks Judge’s Mesa up and down before shrugging, “You’re pretty too, I guess.”

“Chic, please, they’re so bad at this,” Punk groans, “Can we please just give them a hint?”

“No, they’re babies,” Chic says, “In all the ways that don’t matter. Let them have this.”


	47. Chapter 47

Judge has long grown used to his… _hallucinations_. He has not made peace with it, this void poisoning. He doesn’t think he ever will. Whenever he thinks that it is a possibility his hallucinations, his illusions, change. They change strategies, they change faces, the adapt. Such is the danger of a person’s own mind, he guesses.

They still catch him by surprise, sliding into his reality, into his dreams, into his consciousness seamlessly. He still can’t tell when they enter, when they leave. It’s like dreaming but somehow worse and more intimate, more insidious.

If he were to tell Kore this she would say that it doesn’t sound like he’s gotten used to them at all.

But he has.

He no longer denies them, now. He no longer reacts with the same level of unmitigated fear.

They can be stopped. Judge can learn.

There are tools at his disposal to help him discern what is real and what isn’t. He’s learning them. He’s adapting, changing, too. His mind will not always be the ruin of him. He’ll figure his way out of it eventually. There is no one to stop him from himself.

“Except yourself,” the hallucination muses, tucked into a corner of his ship, just in the periphery of Judge’s vision. He does not turn or acknowledge it. It is a figment. It is fake.

He is the real Judge. He is the real one. And he is the one in control.

“Consider this,” the hallucination continues, “Have you considered that there is no one to save you from yourself? That you’re so hopelessly destructive that you are your own cycle of destruction without rebirth?”

You can’t continuously destroy something and not run out things to destroy.

“Everything you touch, Judge,” the hallucination says, “Become vulnerable to your contagion. Think about it. Seriously. Everywhere you go there’s something you ruin. Is that innate? Genetic? Or are you really just that miserable? Don’t make that face. If you make that face people will start to pity you and then they’ll get struck by your bad luck.”

Judge focuses on his hands. He can feel them. The foundry console is warm, vibrating as it works away at creating new ciphers. He can feel it in his fingertips, down to his bones. If Judge presses his body against the front of the foundry, he will feel the heat it gives off through his suit.

If Judge flexes his toes, he will feel resistance from his boots, he will feel the texture of his boots against the smooth, smooth Orbiter floor, resisting. Traction.

These are not things you can feel if you are dreaming, if you are false.

“How happy Persephone was without you with her,” the hallucination says.

Judge can taste the flavor of the bright blue candy Kore gave him, residual at the back of his tongue. Kore had laughed,  _your tongue is blue_. Maybe his tongue is blue right now.

“You are the one who dragged her out of that warframe, you are the one who brings her  _anxiety_ ,” the hallucination says. “She fixes everything for you. Wherever you go she follows right after to make things right, to fix your mistakes, to make it better. People think that you’re the smart one, the clever one, the  _detective_  and maybe you are but you aren’t the one who  _fixes things._ You just present the problem, make it worse. You aggravate the wound until it can’t be left alone. And then she comes in. Your precious  _spring_.”

Judge bites his tongue and turns away to head towards his arsenal. He needs to adjust the mods on his Ash. He’s not hitting the speed he needs, although he’s pretty durable right now. He might have to switch out some of that stability for more speed, or at least, more maneuverability.

“You dragged her out of that warframe and you made her  _afraid_. Who has ever known spring to be afraid? You put her under the Grineer Queens. You made her face a Daxx. You brought her to the Kuva. What else have you done to her, Judge?”, the hallucination is close, now. A shifting presence at the back of Judge’s neck. “You’ve made her face her own mind in the Derelict. You’ve made her face Ordan Karris and the possibility of her own complicit participation in enslavement of another. You’ve forced her open to others. If she fixes everything for  _you_  who fixes things for  _her_? After winter comes spring, but then what? What about a hard frost that comes right after that? Who fixes her then, Judge?”

Kore doesn’t need fixing.

Kore would spit fire in the face of anyone who would suggest such a thing.

Kore is a person, a soul, unto herself. She decides what she is, who she is. Kore and Kore alone, and no one has any say in that unless she permits it by her own good graces. Judge knows this the hard way.

“Who fixes her after you’re done with her, Judge?”

The hallucination’s voice is so close that Judge almost imagines the short hairs on the back of his neck raising.

“Where is she right now? It’s been quiet. You haven’t seen her since - ah, right. You haven’t seen her since then. You haven’t spoken to her since you upset her enough to send her away to the Void. Yes, she made it seem as though it was alright. But how do you know? Spring hides many secrets.”

Judge feels his chest compressing, squeezing shut.

If you ignore it, it isn’t there, Judge thinks to himself. Acknowledging the hallucination just gives it power.

But aren’t I already acknowledging it by just thinking about it? Listening? Judge breathes out slowly, presses his palms against his Ash’s forearm as he moves the frame to adjust the angle of one of his dagger holsters.

“She’s been quiet. Not a single hail or message. The Void is a dangerous place, and she went alone. Remember what she did with her Cephalon? She would have died and not let you do a single thing. Where is she now, Judge?”

Kore is on her ship. Kore is on her ship and she is…quiet. Kore’s been quiet before. Kore is naturally quiet unless you engage her. Kore has been quiet for six hours.

It’s the middle of a day cycle.

“Scylla, hail Cephalon Ordis on Persephone’s ship,” Judge says softly.

The hallucination laughs.

“I’m sorry, Operator,” Scylla says, “Communications are silenced. I cannot patch through, I am rerouted automatically.”

Judge’s hands curl into fists.

There could be explanations for this that don’t automatically go to Kore being dead or injured.

“Is Kore’s signal still from her ship? Has she deployed?”

“There is no record of Tenno Kore deploying within the last three hours, Operator,” Scylla says, “Nor are there any alerts from the Lotus in Tenno Kore’s area. Would the Operator like to travel to Tenno Kore’s current location”

 _Yes_ , Judge thinks and Scylla is already moving.

The hallucination laughs.

“Winter come spring come winter. What do you not touch that you do not ruin?”


	48. Chapter 48

Something in Kore has changed.

Shifted.

Kore stands stiff at his side, the material of her new suit looks hard and unforgiving. The colors of it are harsher. They match her Saryn, her Mirage, her Titania, her Ember.

Kore’s transference suits before were soft. Pink and black with white and gold. The material flowed, it was malleable, bending, calm.

Kore’s new suit is white and black with vibrant red and gold. It looks intimidating, hard and aggressive. It brushes against the memory of the Orokin and what it was like to live then, there, as  _that_. As a weapon.

She looks  _good_. There’s no denying that Kore is  _beautiful_  no matter what she shows up in. Judge has seen her in sweat stained underclothes flecked in paint and biomatter and still thought she looked amazing. But this is different. This is…unsettling.

Judge has trouble reconciling that Kore with the current one. The Kore that looks ready to take orders and deploy with a regiment of fellow Saryns.

He considers, perhaps, having kept Ballas a secret.

He considers that maybe he should have lied to her about the Lotus’ disappearance.

But Kore has never liked lies, and she would have found out eventually. And Kore could always see through him with uncanny accuracy. He’s not sure if it’s just a her and him thing or if it’s because he’s that transparent.

“Kore,” Judge whispers as Kore slowly stretches her wrist, adjusting her amp, “Kore?”

Kore doesn’t acknowledge him, but she doesn’t return to her Ember frame, either.

Her eyes glow in the dark night. They glow gold. If she held still and he held her eyes with his he could see the ring of blue-green. But like this they’re only glimmers of golden yellow in the dark shadows of her face. One of those dark shadows could be vaguely considered as the ring of ivy around her right eye.

“Are you - “ Judge starts and stops.

There’s no way to really say it.

“Am I alright,” Kore finishes for him. “No, Judge. I’m not.”

Judge presses his lips together. He’s never seen Kore so rattled. So affected by anything.

Their parents were mutating and murdering before their eyes, they were stuck with needles and metal rods and imprisoned behind concrete and steal, the were launched into wars, and he’s never had a memory of her reacting like this.

Ordan Karris was different. Judge is used to Kore’s emotional outbursts. He prefers them. They’re part of Kore’s working process.

He’s never seen Kore react to something by shutting down entirely. By shutting her emotions down entirely.

“Kore,” He says, but she flicks her amp, gold transferring to blue as she spreads her weight on her feet and focuses forward.

“There’s two more approaching from the south. You get those, I’ll get these,” Kore says. And then she’s a golden wisp that’s vanished into her Ember, and her Ember is a crimson streak through the night, chasing after white-blue.

Judge takes care of the Eidolon fragments that were south of them. He goes back to where Kore left him and he sees her standing on a rock formation.

Ember is at the base of the rocks, the faintest suggestion of red that flickers in the night. Like glow-flies, but somehow more sinister for their color.

Kore, herself stands at the top of the rocks. Judge leaves his Titania next to Kores’ Ember and climbs up the rocks. It feels strange and good to feel  _grit_  underneath his fingers, to feel the texture of it against his boots.

Judge stands next to her, and behind her as they survey the plains.

The Eidolon is far off, but they can see the faint glow of its blue light from here. Judge hopes it terrorizes some Grineer.

The fragments of the moon cast strange shadows on the ground, and the water glows with radiation.

“Are we going to talk,” Judge whispers, “Or are we going to continue to ignore this?”

Kore’s short hair looks gray in this light. Silver.

Kore had summarily left his ship after her explosion and she hasn’t talked to him about it since. He’s tried bringing it up - what did she mean? - but Kore’s been determinedly changing the subject or otherwise remaining completely silent.

It’s very unlike her. And he finds it equally frustrating as it is concerning.

“Ballas had to come from me,” Kore says, turning her head slightly so he can see the faintest glitter of her eyes before she turns forward again, “There’s no other way it could have happened, Judge. I did this.”

“Explain it to me,” Judge says. “Talk it out.”

“Ballas couldn’t have latched onto you, not from he start,” Kore says. “You never knew him. Never interacted with him. So  _how_  did Ballas’ ghost signature get to the Lotus? It followed you, Judge. I don’t doubt that. I don’t doubt the somehow it was the Lotus and you and  _him_. But  _how_  did he follow you?  _How_  did he find you to start with?”

Kore turns towards him, “Did you ever work under him? That you can remember?”

“No,” Judge says, shaking his head. “I was always in the asteroid. After initial testing, I mean. Until they put us on the Orbiters. The only time i ever saw him was when they had us assemble. And that was always from afar. And then…I think the last time was…”

“When we killed him,” Kore says, nodding, “I thought so.”

She turns back towards the plains.

“Ballas was in our ears all day every day. And if it wasn’t him it was a recording of him, or it was something recorded  _by_  him, or it was something written by him to be passed onto us,” Kore says. “I don’t find it unreasonable or hard to believe that maybe, just maybe, he figured out how to attach part of himself to us. Like ghosts.”

“Then it could have been any Tenno who served under him. He had full squadrons,” Judge says. “There’s no evidence suggesting it was  _you_.”

“There is,” Kore says. “What other Tenno who served directly under Ballas interacts with you almost daily? And tell me. What other Tenno do we know has a cephalon that was personally transformed, chosen, and modified by Ballas himself?”

Kore’s fists close slowly and release quickly.

“Ordis admits that they altered his personality, programmed in…watchers. They programmed in lots of little things to keep him from restoring himself fully, from reverting. It’s only thanks to time that they degraded enough for him to become who he is today. Ballas could have easily put a fragment of himself into Ordis’ programming to fester.”

“And that wouldn’t have degraded?”

“Maybe it didn’t need to degrade,” Kore says, “Maybe it just needed to leave.”

“You think it entered the weave between Cephalons.”

“I think that our ships have been in close proximity for years and there have been plenty of opportunities for transference between one host program and another,” Kore says. “And I think that between the two of us you were always more likely to physically show yourself before the Lotus. I…trusted her. I trusted her and her directives. I had no reason to ever seek her out. You did. You still do.”

Judge swallows and shakes his head, “It’s too much of a long shot, Kore. There are too many holes in this.”

“But there’s enough of it to hold water,” Kore says. “I’ll never escape him, Judge. He’ll always be there. A parasite that refuses to die. Or maybe some sort of parasite that incubates until the time is right to rise again. I don’t know. I just want him out of me.”

“He is,” Judge says. “Kore you’ve always been your own. He never had you.”

Kore is silent and pale and colored wrong by the light of the moon.

“He always wanted us soft and beautiful,” Kore says, “I like the color red because it’s not his color. It wasn’t  _elegant_  enough for him. It was a common color. It was a  _flesh_  color. It was a hard color. It was a color that screamed of attention. It was the first color I could think of for myself afterwards. After the War and the long sleep.”

Kore turns her head down and runs her hand over the sash at her waist.

“But I can’t ever escape the fact that he made me, made  _us_ , what we are. Everything I’ve ever done has been either based on what he taught me or a reaction to trying to  _avoid_  what he taught me.”

Kore’s sigh is harsh and tinged with a laugh, “Judge, if the Lotus and Margulis were meant to be our mothers does that make Ballas my father?”

Judge can’t help it when he moves forward and seizes her by the elbow, turning her to face him as he crushes her into a hug. Kore’s fists are hard against his back as she clings to him, breath shaking and silent in her chest.

He can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying or choking on a scream.


	49. Chapter 49

Kore is sitting on top of some rocks, Hajra sleeping at her back, considering the merits of going in and wiping out a Grineer encampment. It’s that time of day where the fishing isn’t good because of the reflection in certain areas of the many bodies of water, and because other Tenno have started to congregate there, and when she’s too lazy to do anything else. Due to lack of good fishing spots and lack of anything better to do, she’s considering turning her eyes onto the Grineer.

These Grineer also happen to be close to the water and if she wants access to the water she’ll have to remove them anyway. But Kore is also considering the annoyance of having to deal with enemy patrols going back to this base and having to be on alert for them at all times to deal with them before they can call in reinforcements.

She’d never get any fishing done like that.

Kore’s halfway made up her mind to just kill them to cause the Grineer some trouble when she senses another Tenno approaching.

Kore turns and sees a black and gold Oberon silently making his way down the slopped hill straight towards the water. She wonders if the Oberon is going to go fishing or if they’re there for the Grineer. Or maybe they’re passing by.

The Oberon stops just shy of range of the enemy encampment, not yet spotted. Kore has her Saryn zoom in on their opticals. The Oberon stands there for a long moment before raising a hand up and releasing this strange sound through its speakers. Kore can hear it from all the way over here, it sounds like a signal, or a siren. A synthetic - through Oberon’s speakers and scrambler - whine. Almost like a whistle.

Hajra perks up against her back, sitting up. Kore turns and sees that Hajra’s ears are pricked forward at attention.

Kore turns back to the Oberon and almost recoils.

There are at least a good dozen kubrow around it in all different sizes, different colors. And more are coming.

Kore turns to scan the fields around them and she sees signatures of fast moving kubrow coming in hot to converge on the Oberon.

No, wait.

The Oberon raises a single, elegant arm and extends one sharp-pointed finger towards the Grineer camp. The Grineer who are well aware of their watcher now that they’ve made themselves so clearly obvious.

The kubrow, the ones with the Oberon and the ones still coming in fast, charge. Kore now has visuals on the heat signatures. Some of these are  _feral kubrow_ which she didn’t even know existed on the plains.

And the Oberon, steady as the Earth around the sun, strings a Paris Prime and starts to take aim.  

Kore watches, interested and slightly unnerved, as she watches this camp of Grineer swarmed by dogs and get ripped apart. She hears howling, barking, snarling, and the sounds of machine guns and Grineer death throes. Kore turns to Hajra who looks extremely excited to see so many dogs at once.

“Stay,” Kore says to Hajra, who immediately plants her butt down on the ground but still looks eager to join the fight.

The Grineer do get air reinforcements.

The Oberon shoots them straight out of the sky with a calm detachment. She doesn’t think the Oberon is trying very hard. The way they string their bow is sort of lazy. As if it isn’t worth the effort.

The Oberon plucks them out of the sky and the kubrow on the ground converge on the metal and flesh without any distinction between what they grab with their jaws.

Kore can’t even track a single bullet that gets close enough for the Oberon to try and deflect.

Impressive.

Kore turns from the dogs back to the Oberon. The Oberon slowly turns its head and looks back at her.

Kore tenses ready to leave. She doesn’t think she’ll be challenged to a duel out in the plains of Cetus just because she happened to be sitting and watching some Grineer. But some Tenno can be…aggressive.

The Oberon looks away from her and slowly continues its descent down to the encampment. The kubrow in batches go from running to the Oberon and circling it for pets and scratches and back to the encampment, barking at corpses, nudging supply catches, digging and otherwise being regular dogs.

The feral ones linger around the edges. The Oberon waves a hand and they come close, bellies low to the ground, quickly passing their sides over the Oberon’s navy skirts before running and disappearing into the long grasses.

Kore senses one more heat signature, coming instead of leaving. She turns and sees a smaller kubrow running with a small eel in its jaws. It barrels straight into the Oberon’s legs, bouncing back onto its butt and drops the fish. It barks, ears high and tongue lolling out.

Kore laughs a little. The little kubrow has pretty much missed all combat but he’s got a fish and he looks very proud of himself for it

The Oberon’s head turns towards her, idly petting the pleased dog and it tilts its head.

Kore stops laughing. It couldn’t have heard her. Kore draws her legs up, ready to leave, but the Oberon raises a hand and beckons her over.

Silence over all communication channels. Kore wonders if this Tenno is awake. They must be, if they are on Cetus.

She cautiously jumps down off her rock, Hajra following close behind as she draws closer to the former Grineer encampment, current Grineer death scene.

She stops a few feet away from the kubrow furthest out.

The Oberon pulls out a fishing spear and points at the water, and then at the Grineer. It then tilts its head.

Kore also pulls out a fishing spear, and repeats the same gestures.

The Oberon nods, flicks its wrist and the kubrow - or at least, most of them - scatter. The Oberon then walks towards the water, lifting the spear over its shoulder, and waits. The small kubrow that arrived late trots after, eagerly looking into the water, tail wagging.

Kore nudges Hajra and the two of them take up a similar stance by the water a few yards away. This far away from each other they shouldn’t be interfering with each other’s throws. She can still sense the heat signatures of the other kubrow. They seem to be pairing off and patrolling. Or something like it.

“Follow,” Kore says to Hajra, who barks, and goes off into the plains. Plenty of warning, now.

The other Tenno doesn’t try to talk to her or anything. It’s like being with her own clan members in that they’ll sometimes sit in the same room waiting for research to be completed and staring at different spots on a wall in complete silence. It’s companionable. Kore likes it.

Companionable silence, no small talk, the only sounds are their spears and the water. Looks like she’ll have enough fish for the cousins, too.


	50. Chapter 50

“Cousins,” The Oberon’s speakers whisper softly, “Here.”

He points a black sharp-tipped finger at something on a piece of paper and the fisherwoman starts yelling at him, sounding both terrified and enraged. There is a lot of knife waving going on.

“Oh,  _Void_ ,” Punk groans, raising the volume on his speakers to be heard over her, “I’m sorry, Alpha is so bad at this. He doesn’t mean that he killed your cousins and left them in a pile of bloody parts in the plains. He means that there’s fish here. You know?  _And for the cousins too?”_

Kore watches this happening from where she’s sitting on top of a building, Titania’s narrow legs dangling off and resting on the top of the large rectangular tarps stretched between rooftops, and quietly pings Judge.

“Are you  _sure_  that this is  _the Alpha_?”

“Punk and Chic said his is,” Judge says. “I mean. You’ve seen him in action. He’s definitely worthy of an article in front of his call sign.”

“Yes,” Kore says. She’d even seen him in action before she know who he is. Well. She’s seen his many, many kubrow and kavat in action. She’s just seen that he’s really good with a bow and arrow. “It’s just - he’s a little. A little.  _You know what I’m saying_.”

There’s no word to describe Alpha’s  _unique awkwardness_  that usually involves the spoken word. There isn’t really anyone who understands him except for the Empress.

Kore is still in complete and total awe that she’s  _met_  the Empress. And not only has she  _met_  the Empress, but that there is a possibility of future meetings with the Empress because of course Punk is one of the luckiest Tenno alive currently and he’s somehow gotten both the Alpha and Empress’ good side and  _the two visit him regularly_. Or well, as regularly as you can imagine given the strange time and schedules all Tenno keep and constantly adjust due to inter-planetary travel.

Thus far the Alpha only really communicates in one or two words, rarely a full sentence of more than five. And it’s all delivered in a whisper that maintains a completely emotionless monotone. Kore’s not quite sure if that’s some sort of filter he has installed or not. She wants to ask so she could get one installed for herself on all of her frames, but if it isn’t she doesn’t want to offend.

Usually the Empress is around to translate all of Alpha’s one or two word, and occasionally  _no words at all_  communications but at this particular moment she’s working on upgrading her amp.

And Alpha, apparently, didn’t want to wait for her to finish because he was - according to the Empress - very anxious about the state and condition of the fish he had left out in the plains because he couldn’t carry it all back. It was, the Empress told them, of utmost importance that these fish be made known to the fisherwoman. For Alpha’s peace of mind. And, of course, for the food stores of the people of Cetus. And then she left to get her amp upgraded while the Alpha stood quietly waiting for someone to go with him.

Kore is ready to go back to her ship, but Judge is in the middle of something with Onko. Something about information or lore or some question Judge wanted answered. Glass fish this, something, something, that. Kore’s sure that Judge is going to tell her later along with a hundred other theories and conspiracies that his mind conjures up. For  _his_  peace of mind.

Kore doesn’t particularly like Onko’s brusque familiarity, though she admits she likes him better than Teshin.

Well. Kore likes  _most_  people better than Teshin.

It’s no offense to Teshin.

No, it’s a  _little_  offense to Teshin.

Most of the reason why Kore doesn’t like him is because of his…familiar source material. Looking at him, hearing him, is like seeing too many things too close. Remembering, reliving things she would rather have left behind in the dark, in the compacted waste of her soul. Ballas, herself, Marguilis, the scientists, the gold and glitter and blood.

The rest of it is purely natural Teshin personality.

Kore leans back on the roof, looking up at the morning sky. This place could use some trees. Tall ones. Like the ones at Everest. Kore prefers the other places on earth infinitely better. Even if there’s no outposts like these there. Especially because there aren’t any outposts like these.

Maybe Kore could find some fish there. She hasn’t tried fishing underwater. It shouldn’t be too hard. Maybe it would even be easier since she can chase after the fish.

She wonders if she could fish on Neptune. There are sharks on Neptune. Those have to eat something. There must be fish there.

Unless -

Do sharks eat other sharks?

That’s something she needs to research. Maybe she could fit a shark onto her ship? A small one. A baby one. A pup. A pup shark. Juvenile sharks are called pups.

Are they somehow related to dogs?

Maybe dogs and sharks are evolutionary cousins.

Another thing to research.

For  _Kore’s_  peace of mind.

“I think Punk and the Alpha are about done. Based on the lack of screaming. Maybe you can find Chic and we can head out again.”

“I want to go back to my ship,” Kore says but half-heartedly looks around for Chic anyway. She stands up and jumps over the rooftops before landing on the outskirts of Cetus. Almost immediately the Blight appears out of invisibility and looks up at her expectantly. “Find the pink one.”

The Blight returns to stealth and goes off again.

Kore leans against the side of a building and waits. Either the Blight finds Chic or she doesn’t. And eventually someone is going to find  _her_.

Kore would rather not have to go through the crowd. The sound and the… _people_  make Kore’s skin crawl badly enough on tenno-only outposts. It’s worse here. With…not tenno. She misses the good days when it was just her and her ship.

She’s never getting that peace of mind back, now.


	51. Chapter 51

“I see that you’re starting to like Rhino,” Judge muses as he shakes off the vibration of Kore’s landing. He can still feel a faint buzzing in his teeth.

“I’m learning the appeal,” Kore says, slowly standing out of the crouch she landed in and walking over towards him with steady steps, her syndana flowing behind her like a menacing shadow. “Apparently to keep up with you I have to take unconventional shortcuts.”

“We’re Tenno, unconventional shortcuts is how we live.”

“More unconventional than that,” Kore says, walking past him, “Since you seem to like flying around and landing anywhere, and to keep up with you I have to  _jump off of buildings_.”

“She’s  _Titania_ ,” Judge says, floating behind Kore as they stalk through cleared out Corpus hallways.

“At least when I’m in my Titania I have the decency to stay close or double back,” Kore replies, pausing and reloading her drakgoon. Judge glances at their Sentinels and both of their Helios’ have their optics focused on something beyond the wall.

“Are you mad?” Judge asks.

“Annoyed,” Kore replies. She steps forward and the automatic doors slide open. There’s the immediate sound of crewmen moving into action and Kore starts firing shots at them. “Can we do this later?”

“Will you be less annoyed if I bring you condroc eggs?” Judge asks.

Kore pauses mid-reload as bullets bounce off of her, harmlessly. Rhino’s head turns just a bit.

“Live or…?”

“You liked them cooked with the center still liquidy, right?” Judge says.

Rhino is very still, ignoring the hail of bullets and energy beams shot their way, considering this.

“I think they call it  _sunny side_. Because the yolk looks like a sun?” Judge continues.

Kore turns towards the Corpus, making an irritated click with her tongue before she finishes reloading her gun. Judge flies back a few feet because he’s beginning to learn her tells in Rhino as she stomps down  _hard_  and a burst of energy flows through the warframe. A white sort of sheen glows over Rhino’s body as she coats herself in armor and she charges forward in a quick burst that sends Corpus and their machines flying in all directions.

“Yes, fine, I’ll be a little less annoyed,” Kore says, as she turns and bursts forward again, hitting the crewmen who were just about to get up and sending them flying once more. “We’ll talk about it after this.”

Titania spins, shrinking down as her razor flies deploy.

“Ordis would cry if you actually did incubate a live condroc, you know that, right?” Judge says. “There’s no room for a bird that big on your ship. On any of our ships.”

“We don’t know that,” Kore says. “I mean, there’s that guy on Cetus who sells them to Tenno.”

“In cages. Looking all sad and stuff.”

-

“What…are you doing?” Judge asks, uncertain as he stops short on Kore’s orbiter. He was going to ask her if he could borrow some of her ferrite - she’s got an endless supply of ferrite and alloy, especially after that thing on Ceres a few cycles back - but it looks like she’s in the middle of something.

Kore’s cleared out all the floor space and she has vials and bits of paper and packets in some sort of grid arrangement.

She also has fruit, slabs of meat, plants, and foods he recognizes from Cetus and various outpost bazaars.

“I’m testing,” Kore says, standing with her back pressed against a wall as she examines the layout in front of her. Everything has a small little placard with symbols and colors on it.

“Testing what?” Judge asks as he carefully walks over to her, taking care to place his feet directly in between each little set-up. “Where is everyone?”

“I have them down on the lower decks, Ordis is watching them in his specter,” Kore says, crouching and folding her fingers together in front of her face as she examines the displays set out before her with concentration he’s used to seeing when she’s lining up a difficult shot or planning a string of stealth kills.

“What is this? What are you testing?”

Kore points to one display which has a small container of red powder from Maroo’s. Flavor powder, the kind they mix with nutrient brick, “That. That is red flavor.”

“Okay?”

And then Kore points at some small pointed vegetation that she probably found on Cetus resting on some paper on another section. They look a bit dried, and shrunken, “That is  _also_  red flavor. But a little different.”

“Okay?”

And then Kore points to something else, “And that is  _also a red flavor_. Why are they all the same flavor? How can  _all of them_  be red flavor? That one over there isn’t even red!”

And then Kore starts pointing, in earnest, “And this! This is supposed to be  _blue flavor_ , but then I tasted  _that_  over there and  _it’s also blue flavor_  but it isn’t blue! And that’s blue but  _it isn’t blue flavor at all_. And then this has a touch of blue flavor but it’s not blue and it’s also not purple? That jar is purple flavor but  _I tried the purple food and isn’t purple flavor at all_. Judge, what are  _flavors supposed to mean if they aren’t color coded_? Am I eating nutrient brick with green flavor?  _Is the flavor really green flavor_? Because all this other stuff doesn’t taste green.”

Judge stares at Kore, and then at the dozens upon dozens of food samples she has laid out.

“Kore, you’ve snapped.”

Kore glares at him, “I have not.”

“Yes, you have. It’s just…maybe the powder ones are only based on color because we lost whatever food they were based on first? And the people of Cetus don’t eat nutrient brick. A lot of outposts don’t eat nutrient brick. They eat real food.”

Kore glares at him and then stalks over to one yellow item, grabs it, and then grabs the jar of green powder and shoves them into his hands.

“Explain that to me. Taste it and explain it to me.”

Kore also grabs a two small green fruit and adds that to Judge’s hands.

“Eat a bit of each of these and explain to me how  _they all taste the same and different_. Two of the green ones taste the same, but the yellow one also tastes like green, but then there’s one green that  _tastes totally different_. Explain it to me, Judge.”


	52. Chapter 52

“We just cleaned this ship,” Kore says as she walks onboard and Judge resists the urge to fling himself into her field of vision so she doesn’t see the many, many new additions he’s added on since he learned to fish. “What are those?”

“Stuff,” Judge says, stretching up on his toes to try and block her from seeing  _his entire ship_. It,  for obvious reasons, doesn’t work.

“Are those…fish?” Kore asks, leaning around him and staring. “Did you  _mount preserved fish on your wall_? I feel so bad for your cephalon. Mine just has to deal with dog hair, but yours is under near-constant threat of losing power because of all the weight her engines have to compensate for. Judge there are  _three_  plaques of eels on your wall. Why? How many -  _how far do these_ \- “

“They were good catches!” Judge says, defensive. “And they look really cool!”

Kore stares at him, “No, your holo-screens are cool.”

Judge blinks and then points at the nearest holoscreen, “You think my holoscreens are cool? You keep telling me to get rid of them!”

“Because you have them  _everywhere_  and they all show different stuff and it’s really, really confusing and it makes my head hurt because they’re also all on different brightness settings,” Kore says. “If you had like, ten or twelve of them I’d be fine with it. How much power does Scylla have to route just towards your holo-screens anyway? That’s not the point - your holoscreens are cool. But these fish are not. These fish - in this quantity - are  _weird_. There are ten yogwuns on the wall, Judge.  _Ten_.”

“I thought yogwuns were your favorite.”

“Sure, but I’m not about to put  _ten of them on my wall_ ,” Kore says and then stops, eyes fixed on something Judge was hoping was buried under enough ayatan stars that she wouldn’t notice. He cringes.

“It is definitely what you think it is,” Judge says before Kore can say anything.

She slowly turns her bright eyes onto him and says slowly, “It looks like a giant glass fish.”

“Y- yeah.”

“Why,” Kore asks slowly, “Do you have a giant glass fish?”

“Because…I found several mini glass fish?”

“And you melted them together to fuse them into one  _big_  glass fish?” Kore asks.

“No.”

Kore walks around him and pulls the thing out from the pile of ayatan stars. He was going to sell those. He swears. Honest.

She examines it.

“Where did you find several  _mini glass fish_?”

“Places.”

Kore’s mouth turns into a flat line.

“On the plains. With…Onko’s direction.”

“Onko. As in - mysterious annoying guy from Cetus who always talks about the Unum and stuff. He told you to find little glass fish.”

“He seemed to imply that he hid them for Tenno to find. Like a little game?”

Kore puts the fish down and walks past him back towards her ship.

“Wait - Kore, did you need something? Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go sit in my Orbiter and relish in the fact that I can see the walls and walk on the floor,” Kore says, “I give up on you. Live your life in clutter, you hoarder.”

-

“For someone who doesn’t like coming around to Cetus you sure are here a lot,” Punk says when he sits down next to where she’s fishing.

“If you talk,” Kore says, “You’ll scare away my fish.”

“Oh, so they’re your fish now?” Punk looks around, “Where’s your nicer half?”

“I’d say the same for you, but that would imply that you have one,” Kore replies. “Shut up. I’m busy. Go bother someone else.”

Punk holds a hand up to his forehead and pretends to faint, “I’m wounded by your words.”

If only.

“So. What’cha doing?”

She turns Titania’s head to look at him as she pointedly spears a yogwun through the eye, “What does it  _look like_?”

“I mean. You don’t like people. So why are you in one of the most populated areas?” Punk asks. “I’m sure there are wild forests of Earth you could be peacefully alone at.”

“I don’t like being surrounded with people. I don’t like interacting with people,” Kore says, “But that doesn’t mean I don’t like people.”

Kore throws the fish onto a somewhat impressive pile of others like it.

“They need to eat.”

“That’s unexpectedly nice of you,” Punk muses. “So you don’t like interacting with people but you’ll suck it up to feed them.”

“Yes.”

“I knew it, you are actually really sweet.”

Kore wonders how much damage she could do if she threw the spear at Punk instead. She could always buy a new spear.

Or she could shove him into the water.

“Do you have to be here?” Kore asks instead.

Punk shrugs, “Nah.”

Kore would think that’s a pointed invitation for him to leave, then.

Punk lies down on the bank of the water. His Valkyr glows a faint blue as Punk rolls out of his warframe, solidifying in a faint white-blue mist of energy as he spreads out on the grass and gravel.

“What are you doing?” Kore asks.

“Taking a nap.”

“ _Here_?” Kore gestures around them. In the open. With regular Grineer drops and patrols. Vulnerable for all the world to rip apart.

“It’s all nice and sunny!” Punk says, yawning and stretching, “Besides, you’re right there. Where else in the plains would be safer?”

Kore stares at the other Tenno.

“You keep Hades alive all the time, and he does way riskier stuff than take a nap on the shore of a lake,” Punk says.

“You’re not Hades.”

“No, but I’m his friend - and yours, as a reminder - so you won’t let me die.”

Kore thinks her spear would do much more damage against Punk now that he’s out of his warframe.

Punk yawns, “Wake me up before you go. I’ll help you carry the fish.”

Well.

She does need help carrying the fish.

“Fine,” Kore says, “If your snoring scares the fish away I’m going to throw you in and use you as bait.”


	53. Chapter 53

“Alright, I think these are done. I mean, they look a lot like what I’ve seen the people of Cetus eating, so we probably won’t kill ourselves with this,” Punk says, tentatively sniffing the fish at the end of his spear and pulling it back from the flame in Ember’s hands.

Judge tentatively sits down at the edge of a blanket Chic had spread out when she left her Trinity and removes his amp and gloves.

Chic’s hair is violently pink in the plain light of Cetus’ midday and it’s giving him a slight headache to look at directly. It’s like it’s letting off light on its own.

“Alpha,” Chic says, waving at the remaining tenno who’s just been standing and watching them from inside his Oberon frame for the past half hour or so, “Come on.”

“Yeah, big guy. All that silence and stalking around must make you hungry,” Punk says, waving one of the cooked fish in Alpha’s direction, “Have a taste. Snack time.”

The oberon remains perfectly still before its head slowly tilts the minutest bit towards the side before it shakes its head slowly.

“Not hungry?” Chic says, “Come on. You have to be.”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to try all that stuff we give them? You’ve got to be sick of nutrient brick by now,” Punk waves the fish around, holding out towards the Oberon’s face. “Come on. Smell it. Smells good, right? Come on.”

“He’s not a dog,” Chic says, rolling his eyes, “What are you doing?”

Judge admits that he’s a little nervous to meet the tenno behind callsign Alpha.  _The Alpha_.

And incredibly intimidated.

The Oberon pushes the spear of fish Punk is waving at it with two sharp-tipped fingers and shakes its head more firmly this time.

“Cousins,” Alpha says through Oberon’s speakers, voice flat and low and  _ominous_.

The three of them glance at each other, trying to parse out what he means.

Judge sincerely hopes that Alpha doesn’t mean that the fish are his cousins, or that he’s eaten the cousins and is no longer hungry, or whatever ominous statement and ending that that one word in that tone of voice implies.

“Do you mean…you’re worried if you eat this that there won’t be enough for the cousins too?” Chic says tentatively.

The Oberon nods.

The three of them let out relieved and incredibly nervous laughs.

“Big guy, you’ve caught them a literal cave full of fish,” Punk says, “That you fill almost weekly for them to keep getting from. The people of Cetus wont starve if you  _eat one fish_.”

The Oberon shakes its head one more time and steps away, “Cousins.”

“Suit yourself,” Chic says.

“We’ve got bread and jam,” Judge says, nervously raising his voice. The Oberon slowly turns to look at him with its golden optical cameras. Its many golden optical cameras. Judge’s voice cracks a little when he speaks again, “Uh. They’re sweet?”

The Oberon shakes its head again and silently moves around them and lies down on its side, back to them, head pillowed on its folded arm and appears to go to sleep.

Judge turns back to Punk and Chic who shrug and settle down on the blanket taking off their own amps and gloves.

“Alright, dig in, I guess” Punk says, proceeding to immediately take a bite out of fish and yelp because it’s still smoking a little. “Ow!”

“Yes, Punk,  _ow_ ,” Chic rolls her eyes and gives Judge a commiserate look, “Can you believe I have to put up with this?”

“You like this,” Punk says, grinning even as he fans his quickly reddening face.

Chic grimaces, “Yeah. I know. I’m so disappointed in myself.”

Judge grins as he rips apart some bread - it’s weirdly multi-colored. It has fruits and nuts in it, he thinks. Would it taste good with that jam he brought Kore the other day? He wonders what she’s eating it with. It probably isn’t so good with nutrient brick. Flavor wise it’s a drastic improvement but - the texture. Ugh.

“Hey, what’s your girl like?” Punk asks and Judge looks up to see the other two tenno looking at him.

“Um?”

Chic and Punk quickly exchange alarmed looks -

“Or - is Persephone a girl? I - sorry. Are they a they? I shouldn’t have assumed, it’s just that. Like. Sorry? I mean - what’s your partner like?”

“Oh,” Judge blinks, “Persephone’s a girl. You’re fine.”

Judge has a feeling that Kore doesn’t care either way about what people think she is. She mostly prefers that people not think about her at all.

“Why do you ask?”

“You had a look on your face. Like you were thinking about her,” Chic says. “And I’m curious. She’s got an air of mystery around her.”

“She made it as a Saryn,” Punk says, “I was almost one but I’m going to say it plain, I’m a shitty tenno and I made sure the Orokin knew it. I burned out like,  _five_  of the frames they stuck me in. I don’t think they’d have risked me burning out a Saryn.”

“Persephone’s Persephone,” Judge says, shrugging. “What do you want to know about her?”

“What’s she look like?” Punk asks, “I heard her talk once, but that was because she thought I was you and that’s how we met and I’ve kind of mostly forgotten what she sounds like. Does she always just use the default voice that comes with all the frames?”

“Yeah,” Judge says, “She doesn’t like it when people know her.”

“A loner?” Chic tilts her head.

“No,” Judge shakes his head. Kore isn’t exactly a loner. She does actively avoid other people, but she did join a clan and sometimes he’s seen her messaging the others in them. And she’s part of that tenno trade network, too.

Also, she’s stood with him for this long.

“She doesn’t like crowds,” Judge says, “Or being noticed. It makes her uncomfortable.”

Some lingering affect of always being front and center when she was with Ballas, maybe.

“Ah,” Chic nods.

“What’s she look like?” Punk asks. “Does she look like her warframes?”

“No,” Judge shakes his head and raises his hand to about just above his eye brows, at the bottom of the gold strip embedded into his temple, “She’s up to here when we stand next to each other. And she’s like - flowers?”

“Flowers?” Punk and Chic repeat, turning to give each other baffled looks before turning back to Judge.

Judge gestures in a vague circle around his right eye. “Uh. Here, she has her somatic scars around here and they’re this blue-green that kind of looks like - leaves? And her hair is pink.”

Punk points to Chic. Chic tugs at a wild lock of her own hair.

“No. Not so. Erm. Violent,” Judge says, “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Softer,” Judge says, “Like. Um.”

“Flowers?” Punk says.

“Yeah,” Judge says haplessly, “Like flowers.”

“Huh, that’s not the image I had,” Punk muses. “I was thinking someone like…tough looking.”

Judge thinks about Kore’s new suit and armor and the vivid red of her sash seemed to blind against the white of the armor plates and black of the suit’s cloth.

“No, she’s really tough looking.”

“I was imagining someone who looked more subdued,” Chic says turning around towards the Oberon behind her, “What do you think Alpha? What did you imagine Persephone would look like? Alpha?”


	54. Chapter 54

“Alpha?" Chic says, shaking the unresponsive Oberon. “Wait a -  _he's not even in here!_ ”

Judge gapes - "You mean he left his frame? I thought - “

“That he's like your Persephone and is super shy?” Chic says, “No. He doesn’t mind leaving his frame. In fact, that is the problem with Alpha.”

“One of several,” Punk says, “Alright, pack it up. We’ve got - I think - about five hours before nightfall and we lose all light. I’m not staying out here with Alpha on the loose at night. We’ve got to find him before nightfall.”

“What’s the problem with Alpha?” Judge asks as he hurries to help the other two tenno pack up their food. “Is he - not a good tenno fighter by himself? Is he in trouble?”

Chic and Punk laugh, shaking their heads as Punk mournfully tosses the cooked fish at their Kubrow and Kavats. Chic sighs and crams a large chunk of bread into her mouth.

“No. Alpha’s a great tenno fighter. In fact he’s probably the only person who could beat the Empress in a tenno fight,” Punk says. “That’s not the problem with Alpha. The problem is that he’s terrifying and completely unaware of it. Like. He’s a good guy. Don’t get me wrong.  He’s  the absolute gentlest, sweetest, kindest, overall  _best person_  you could ever meet. You saw it earlier, right? He didn’t want to eat because he was worried if he ate one fish the  _cousins_  of Cetus wouldn’t have enough.”

“He stockpiles food supplies in hidden caves around Cetus and gives the people directions to find them. He keeps them regularly refilled,” Chic adds on. “Alpha is one hundred percent a wonderful and beautiful person. That is not the problem.”

“The problem with Alpha is that, for one thing, only one out of twenty words he thinks makes it out of his head,” Punk says. “So that creates some…unnerving situations. Again.  _Cousins_. But he’s also quiet. Very quiet.”

“Did you know the Stalker doesn’t go for him anymore?” Chic says, handing Judge a jar of honey that he wraps in cloth and stows in one of the small sachets he has on his Mesa. “And Alpha’s very sad about it. He really wants a Dread. But apparently the Stalker came for him  _once_  and Alpha was so quiet that the Stalker couldn’t find him. Except that Alpha was waiting and following behind the Stalker the entire time and he said -  _Dread_  and the Stalker called it quits because. I mean. If you were the Stalker, or anyone, really, and you were looking for your target, and your target somehow managed to be directly behind you without setting you off the entire time and then just went and said  _dread_  to you, you’d leave, too.”

Judge isn’t sure if this is true or not. It sounds highly improbable. The Stalker manages to infiltrate Orbiters and get past Cephalons and the Lotus and everyone else. He doesn’t think that one single tenno would be able to scare the Stalker.

“Anyway, Alpha’s quiet. And he doesn’t realize that. So sometimes,  _at night_ , you’ll just. Listen. Let’s not talk about it. Punk shakes his head. “Let’s just. Not talk about it and hope we find him before nightfall.”

They do not find him before nightfall.

“Fuck,” Punk says, holding his hand out, blue flame in the palm of his hand as they look around. “How have we not found him? Pug, you’re supposed to be good at tracking.

Punk’s Kubrow, Pug, looks very dejected.

Chic’s hair is a violent, bright, saturated pink even at night and it’s hurting Judge’s eyes even more.

“Alpha?” Judge calls out, hearing nothing. He wonders if he should try whistling.

“Let’s leave his frame here, message the Empress, and go back to Cetus,” Chic says, “It’s too dark and I’m not ready to die.”

“There’s nothing on the plains that the three of us can’t handle,” Judge says. “And Alpha’s a good fighter, you said so.”

“No, listen. It’s not about that,” Punk frowns, “It’s. Look. If we waited for him to come back - and who knows when that would be - it’s. How do I even explain this? Alpha  _looks_  like a horror story. Have you ever heard of Slenderman? Or - he’s like an Orthos that’s got more Orthos for limbs. Or - or - or, that thing that humans used to use. The things the put outside their buildings of commerce to attract attention. They were like tubes and they waved around a lot.”

“What?”

“Anyway, he look like that. With glowing eyes. And a really chilling voice. I, for one, am not willing to just  _wait_  for that to happen upon me. You said you met him at night, right? But in his frame? I want you to imagine the terror you felt but multiply it by a thousand.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Judge says, rolling his eyes and turning to yell into the night, “Alpha! We’ve got your frame! Where are you?”

“He is not exaggerating,” Chic says, “Just hope you never face that fear head on.”

Judge turns around to tell Chic that they’re both being dramatic and freezes.

Above Punk and Chic, just on top of the rocks they were standing next to is a glow.

A glow.

Two glows.

One a deep gold and the other a bright white-blue. Both looking down on them like spotlights.

Judge’s throat closes and he feels the hair on the back of his neck raise.

Punk and Chic turn and immediately Punk grabs Judge’s arm, Judge grabs Chic’s, and Chic finishes by grabbing Punk as they lurch into each other.

Judge feels pressure build in his chest as the eyes slowly move, like a head tilting, and he hears through the night -

“ _Shhhh._ ”

Judge screams. There’s no shame in that. Judge screams. Punk screams. Chic screams.

They are all screaming and all of them discharge bursts of Void energy at once.

Judge’s snap’s out in a jagged magenta line, Punk’s billows out in clouds of blue flame, and Chic’s ripples over the ground in a wave of bright pink.

All of their void energy seems to just - _slide_  away from the figure on the rocks.

The figure that stands.

And stands.

And stands.

Judge’s neck is craning back with how high the eyes have risen.

“ _Shhh,”_ The eyes repeat, and there’s a scuff of a shoe. The eyes slowly return to being level. “Afraid?”

“Yes,” Punk screams, voice an entire octave higher, “ _Void, yes, I’m afraid._  What the hell, Alpha!”

Chic starts laughing hysterically, “You scared Hades so bad he’s gone white. Alpha! Seriously!”

“How many times have we told you?  _Warning!_ ” Punk bursts out, pulling himself from Judge and Chic’s grip as he waves his arms. “Get down here.”

“Scuffed boot,” Alpha says. His voice is low, deeper than Judge’s heard on any other tenno, and very, very soft.

“You did that  _afterwards_ , though,” Punk groans as Alpha jumps off the rock, landing in a crouch before standing up again.

Judge gapes as he cranes his neck back. Alpha is tall. Probably just as tall as his warframe, if not taller. And thin. He does look like a bunch of Orthos that got stuck together.

“Shhh,” Alpha lifts a finger to his mouth. Up close, in the light of Chic’s hair and Punk’s flames, Judge can see that Alpha has two colored eyes. His left eye is gold and his right eye is light blue. And he has a very - closed face. His face looks…unchanging. A poker face, Maroo would call it. Like a warframe’s. It doesn’t change.

Alpha shushes them again and points over his shoulder. “Sleeping, now.”

“What is?” Punk asks, walking around the rocks to where Alpha had been crouched over earlier. “Oh, cool.”

Judge follows punk and sees a nest of sleeping kuakas, all huddled together.

“Were you with them all day?” Chic asks, baffled.

Alpha slowly shakes his head, gesturing for them to wait before he jogs off.

He returns moments later with his hands full of something. He tilts his hands out to them and shows an entire fistful of Ayatan stars and some sort of plant.

He holds his hands out towards them, gesturing for them to take them. The three of them hold out their hands as he pours the stars and the plant leaves and berries into their palms before jogging back to where he came from and coming back with another handful.

“Where did you - ?” Judge asks, baffled.

“Felt them,” Alpha says slowly, “Saw fisherwoman with the same.”

“Aw,” Chic says, “You wanted to spruce up our picnic lunch.”

Alpha nods.

“And the stars?” Judge asks.

Alpha shrugs, “Felt them, too.”

“Alpha can sense things in the ground,” Judge explains, “And he can feel minerals and stuff. Part of his focus or something. Told you. Nicest guy. Terrifying, but nice.”


	55. Chapter 55

Kore is surprised to find that Titania’s grove is occupied. She knows that other Tenno know about the area, the importance of it to their history, to Earth and the Orokin. She knows that the Tenno who follow the New Loka were told about it, obviously.

It’s just that -

She’s never seen anyone else come here. This is the first time she’s seen anyone else who wasn’t Judge here.

She recognizes the waframe as the Oberon from the plains. Alpha. The Alpha, apparently. She’s not spoken to him, nor has he spoken to her, but she knows who he is from some encounters Judge has told her about. At the time he was also slightly crazed and looked like his eyes were going to pop out of his head.

Supposedly, he also met the Empress and Kore will believe it when she has solid proof that isn’t him possibly being sleep deprived.

“Am I interrupting you?” Kore asks, uncertain as she climbs the incline up towards the zenith of the grove. The Oberon slowly turns and looks up at her and shakes its head, slowly extending an arm out as if to say sit.

Kore looks around and she doesn’t see anyone else. She wonders if he’s alone. There’s a kubrow sleeping behind him, but she doesn’t see anyone else, or signs of anyone else.

Kore tentatively sits on a patch of grass closer to the wall, leaning her Saryn’s back against the stone and preparing to slip into meditation.

She likes it here. It feels like a place that is free, untouched, unmarked. It feels like a place that belongs to no one, and has never belonged to anyone. It feels like a place where you exist out of time. It is a place where you can breathe and you are nothing and no one else but yourself.

“Are you sure I’m not interrupting?” Kore asks.

The Oberon remains silent, and Kore wonders if Alpha is New Loka. She wonders if he’s - one of those. Kore likes Earth, she loves Earth. She loves the goal of preserving it and reclaiming it and letting it be free and wild and glorious.

She does not like the idea of razing all life to the ground for this purity.

The Oberon turns to look at her over its shoulder, and as if sensing her hesitance, Alpha slowly reaches back and lifts up the edge of his syndana revealing the mark of Steel Meridian.

Kore releases a sigh, her own syndicate rank visible on her Saryn’s chest.

“Safe,” Alpha says, voice low and whispering over the soft green grass. “Quiet here. Alone?”

The Oberon tilts its head.

“Yes,” Kore says, “You?”

The Oberon nods.

“Usually. No one else comes here. Why?”

“I don’t know why,” Kore says and the Oberon shakes its head.

“No. You. Why?”

Kore does not have the words to say why, even if she was so inclined. The words for peace and harmony and something that comes between like a knife in the ribs but harder and more distinct fails her. It is trapped somewhere inside of her, it is trapped like razor-fly wings between soft hot palms. Painful, ribboned, flayed.

“Quiet here,” Alpha says. “Clean.”

Alpha nods to himself, once and repeats, “Clean.”

It is as good a word as any.

“There are no eyes here,” Kore finds herself saying. “There are no mouths.”

She wonders where those words come from. They aren’t right. They aren’t wrong. They are a flutter of truth trapped between clumsy fingers that lack the dexterity to hold them.

The Oberon nods, facing forward again, hands in its lap as it stares out into the rock walls and faint blue light of the grove.

Kore wonders if she should say more, if there is anything else that she should be saying.

If these were her fellow clans-men she would know that silence is preferable.

If this were Judge she would know that he would fill the silence if he needed the sounds, and if he needed sounds that weren’t his he would prompt her with some sort of visual cue.

But the other Tenno remains seated, facing forward back straight, hands in its lap. The kubrow curled against its back continues to sleep, unbothered.

So Kore closes her eyes within her ship and Saryn’s frame on Earth starts to tap into the wind and the sound of water. She is one with this space, or perhaps greater than one. She is something larger here, a small and insignificant feature in a scene, a setting, a timeless place. She is a rock, a leaf, a twig, the micro-second sound of a bubble in a the stream, a single spore of moss. Kore becomes everything, she becomes nothing. She becomes something that is greater than herself and the golden, angry compacted gold of her own soul. She is more than the violence Ballas made her.

She is more than the war and the Orokin and the void and the demons within.

Kore does not think that Alpha wants or needs her to talk. And for that she feels - relieved?

She does not think that the solace they find in this place is exactly the same. And there’s no way of finding out. But she thinks he feels it closer to what she feels than any other Tenno she has ever met.

“Your silence heals,” Alpha says, Oberon slowly rolling onto its knees and standing. Kore notices that when Alpha delicately lifts each hoof to move the grass in the area he stands springs up greener, vibrant, somehow taller and more lush than the already wonderful and fresh grass already growing.

“It is not empty,” He continues, slowly descending the slope, kubrow trotting behind him. “It is full. Nurture it.”

She decides to take that as advice and nods before realizing he probably can’t see her nodding from behind him so she says, “Thank you.”

Coming from him, with whom sharing silence is more relaxing than anything she has felt from anyone side from Judge, she will take the suggestion with grace. Though she isn’t exactly sure what it means.

“Thank you,” Alpha repeats back, pausing before he steps into the dark, narrow tunnel that leads towards the greater expanse of Earth and its wars and its scars. He tilts his head and a moment later Kore receives a signal pinging her frequency.

She hesitates before saving the frequency and sending her own back to Alpha.

“Silence, again?” Alpha asks.

“Yes,” Kore agrees. “I would be honored.”

Alpha nods once more and disappears into the darkness, a fading glow of gold.


	56. Chapter 56

Judge is faintly aware of the fact that Kore has been in his room, glaring at his fish tanks for the past ten or so minutes. She came in, said hello to Cadmus with a scratch underneath the chin, playfully hissed at Handsome (Judge likes to believe it’s playful), and stood in front of his aquarium tanks with her hands on her hips, hair disheveled, looking like she just lost a fight with her own bed.

Considering the amount of bedding she’s loaded onto said bed, he wouldn’t be surprised if she  _did_  actually lose a fight with her bedding.

Last he checked she had seven pillows, a huge blanket she had made for herself shaped like a cooked condroc egg, multiple smaller blankets that look like they’d been gnawed on by her dogs or picked at by her cats, or simply licked by her Helminth Charger, and various kubrow and kavat toys that are regularly deposited at her feet like offerings to some old and forgotten god.

Getting her out of that thing is a nightmare and possibly one of the hardest things to do, especially given that her Cephalon refuses to help and just coos over her.

Kore taps her bare foot impatiently, ignoring Poppy when he comes into Judge’s room and starts winding himself around her legs looking for attention.

Judge returns his focus back to his main table as he works out just  _how_  exactly Punk and Empress’ last mission went down. Based on Punk’s accounts, the Empress came in through  _this vent_  and landed  _here_ , blades drawn, but no matter how Judge looks at it, that just can’t be possible. She wouldn’t fit, especially not if she had to draw her blades that fast.

“My fish are broken.”

“Your what are what?” Judge blinks as he adjusts a model figure of Punk’s Atlas in between a swarm of Grineer manics.

“My fish,” Kore says, “They’re broken. I need new ones.”

Judge turns to look at her as she continues to look at his tanks. They aren’t very impressive. He just threw in some eels and a couple of lungfish. He thinks he might have a karkina scuttling around in there, if it wasn’t eaten by something else. Kore’s has a variety of fish - even a large murkray.

“You want to flush your tank? Fish can’t be broken.”

“Mine are,” Kore says. “Look. Yours swim in your tanks.”

“That’s usually what they do, yes.”

“Mine swim in  _one_  tank,” Kore says, “All nine of them huddle together underneath the sharrac in one corner. They’re broken. I don’t understand it.”

“What about the tenth?”

“It’s my large yogwun, they won’t swim near it. It’s on the other side of the tank and the only fish that go there are the eel and sometimes the lungfish. But I think that’s because the eel is small enough it can swim around the edges on top and the lungfish is dumb as rocks. It keeps swimming in circles like it’s forgotten what it just swam past.”

Mortus Lungfish are not the brightest of creatures, so Judge thinks it’s a real possibility that it has forgotten.

“Maybe it’s because the yogwun is really big and it makes them nervous.”

“So they’d rather huddle underneath a large  _sharrac_?” Kore raises a skeptical eyebrow, “Right. Sure. Yogwun versus sharrac. Right. I’d totally feel safer in snapping distance of the giant, fast, armored predator.”

Before Judge can say she’s probably just imagining things the door to his room slides open and a gray-green scaled kavat comes slinking in, elegant tail fanning out behind it as it examines the room and goes up to Kore. Kore begins petting the elegant kavat who’s eyes slit closed in pleasure as it starts purring, rubbing up against Kore in earnest. Poppy mewls and also starts pressing up against Kore’s other side harder.

“You have a new kavat?” Judge asks, there wasn’t anything in her incubator yesterday when he went by to borrow some of her extra control modules. It was empty and Kore hasn’t mentioned breeding any new companions.

“No,” Kore says as the Kavat’s purring intensifies with the passing of Kore’s hand over its back.

Judge stares at the Kavat who is happily pressed as close as it can get to Kore’s side without knocking her over.

“I…don’t recognize them?”

“Good, then the genetic modifications I made are working,” Kore says, bending a little to offer her face to the kavat who stretches its neck and nuzzles Kore’s face happily, tail swishing against Kore’s legs. “Pestilence needed to be modified. There is only so much of her I can handle looking at directly before I surrender.”

“You genetically modified Spooky?!?” Judge gapes, doing a double take as he looks at the kavat again. He does somewhat recognize the golden glow on the tail and underbelly, but he doesn’t recognize anything else. Except maybe the demeanor, Spooky is the gentlest most affectionate and gentle kavat he’s ever known. “ _Why_?”

“Why? Because I can’t survive one more night where I wake up to  _that_  standing over me in the dark and then  _disappearing_  out of sight and hearing as I wait wide awake in the darkness  _living in fear_ in my own Orbiter? What other reason do I need, Judge? What kind of question is that supposed to be? Besides. Look at her now. She looks like a dragon.”

“Dragons aren’t real.”

“Prove it,” Kore says immediately, firmly nudging Spooky and Poppy away from her as she walks up to him, defiant set to her shoulders as her mouth quirks up, “You can’t. Dragons and bears are definitely real predators that terrorized the origin species of Earth. You’re just scared of them so you won’t admit it.”

“Kore, dragons are physically impossible,” Judge says, “They wouldn’t even be able to get up off the ground.”

“You know what else is physically impossible, Judge?  _The Infested_. Nice try, dragons are real.” Kore bumps his shin with her foot, pressing her toes against his leg and then digging her heel onto the top of his foot. Her foot is surprisingly warm considering that she’s been barefoot and Judge keeps his Orbiter a little cooler.

“Sure,” Judge says because it’s the quickest way to the end of this well worn conversation. He holds out his hand towards her and she takes it, letting their hands dangle between them as she lightly rests her foot on top of his. “But I’m drawing a line at bears.”

“Oh, come on, bears aren’t that much of a stretch.”


	57. Chapter 57

"I love it,” Kore says breathlessly as she stares at the fish Alpha’s Oberon has just pulled out of the water. It gasps restlessly in his hands. “I want one.”

“It’s disgusting,” Chic says, “Put it out of its misery, Alpha. I think it struggles to exist.”

Alpha quickly and efficiently stabs the fish again, this time through the head and it stops moving. The pink mass of lumpy flesh goes still and he hands it to Kore. It fills Titania’s narrow hands and is surprisingly heavy.

“I want one,” Kore says to Judge.

Judge groans, “Persephone, we can’t keep doing this. Where would you even put it? Besides, those are super rare. Alpha probably got it out of luck.”

“No,” Alpha shakes his head, and without looking throws his spear - almost casually - back into the water and yanks it out again moments later, producing another norg, half-inflated, speared through. “Easy.”

Kore’s Titania shifts from foot to foot with restless energy, “I’m catching a norg and I’m putting it in my tank and I’ll love it forever.”

“You said that about the yogwun,” Judge points out.

“So? And I did. I caught a huge yogwun and I put it in my tank and I did love it forever.”

“You  _flushed it_  into  _space_.”

Alpha makes a very upset sound in the back of his throat that sounds a lot like the chittering of several animals. The only reason why Judge doesn’t think Alpha is actually some sentient warframe walking around and talking is because he’s seen the Tenno in the flesh and he doesn’t ever want to see it again.

“So? I still love it, I have a tracker on it. I know where that fish is at all times. Just because I love something doesn’t mean it has to be alive,” Kore replies. And then, into their private channel, quieter, “I love plenty of things that are dead and gone.”

The tip of his Nova’s finger stretches out towards Kore’s Titania, and the razor-flies of Kore’s Titania momentarily adjust their flight patterns closer to Judge before returning to their orbit centered on Kore.

“Here,” Alpha says, beckoning Kore over and gesturing at the water, “Easy catch.”

“Thanks for coming out with us,” Chic says to Judge as they watch Alpha coach Kore seemingly through only hand gestures on how to spot the norgs and where to best put the bait. Alpha is gesturing at his spear and trying to convey something that Judge isn’t understanding but Kore is nodding enthusiastically. “He’s been a bit lonely since Empress left.”

“Empress left?” Judge asks. He’s only seen her once, and part of him is mostly relieved because he isn’t sure he’d survive seeing her a second time.

“Yeah, sometimes she goes on these super long missions and leaves Alpha behind. It usually involves some sort of deep water diving,” Chic explains, “Alpha hates underwater missions. He’s scared of them.”

“Why?”

“No one’s sure. He just keeps saying  _big_  whenever we ask and refuses to elaborate. Empress probably knows,” Chic’s Trinity shrugs. “Anyway, he gets kind of lonely so Punk and I try and take him out, keep him busy. It doesn’t always work. But maybe he needed variety? So thanks.”

“It was Persephone’s idea,” Judge says. “And you’re welcome.”

“ _Really_?” Chic asks, incredulous as she looks between Judge and Kore. “Your girl actually wanted to meet up with us?”

“Well. She did when she found out that Punk is on the other side of the system and currently occupied,” Judge admits. “She likes you, I think. Mostly she likes that you give people free stuff and she’s hoping for a free color code.”

Chic laughs, “She doesn’t even need it. Persephone is put together in ways I could only  _wish_  onto most tenno.”

Chic grimaces, “I’d kill just to get a quarter of her understanding of color coordination permanently imprinted onto Punk’s thick skull.”

Judge laughs a little, “He’s not that bad at it. I mean, his frames look nice.”

“Who do you think colors his frames for him, Hades?” Chic shakes her head. “Anyway, if the thing that’s coming between me and quality time with Persephone is Punk, consider him written out of the equation. Persephone seems really cool. Let her know I’m down for missions with her and I can definitely boot Punk to the other end of the system whenever needed.”

“Tell her yourself,” Judge says, “I think she’d want to hear that kind of good news directly from the source.”

There’s the sound of splashing and both of them look to see that Kore’s speared a huge norg, the pink flesh wheezes and undulates in her arms as she laughs.

“I got it!” Kore says, turning to them and holding the large flesh-mound above her head as it unevenly inflates and deflates itself.

Alpha quietly starts clapping behind her.

Chic cheers, “Nice!”

Judge shudders, “Good job?”

Titania squeezes the fish close and hugs it. The fish lets out one last shuddering wheeze of breath before going completely limp.

“I’m going to get a dozen of these,” Kore announces, throwing the dead norg onto the shore. Her Helios immediately starts to beep at the dead fish, flashing its scanner at it.

“What’s she going to do with a dozen norgs?” Chic asks.

“I don’t know,” Judge replies, “But she said she’s going to do it, so she will.”

Alpha sits down on the shore, the delicate points of Oberon’s legs just barely dipping into the shallows of the water and the butterfly pattern of its skirts fanning out around the warframe as Alpha settles in to watch Kore fish. One of Alpha’s kubrow - Judge recognizes it as the small one that has trouble fishing by itself, the one Judge helped and led him to his fateful encounter with the other tenno that nearly ended his  _life_  - immediately tries to squeeze itself underneath Oberon’s bent knees and ends up with just its forearms underneath Oberon’s legs and its head rested on Oberon’s knees.

It looks incredibly pleased with itself as Alpha starts to pet its back and shoulders.

“Anyway,” Chic says, “If you and Persephone aren’t too busy you think you could help me with something? I need to get into Tyl Rigor’s lab and grab some samples of his research.”

“Are you joking? Pissing off Tyl Rigor is Kore’s favorite thing to do,” Judge says. “Sometimes she just goes in to mock him and then beat him up until he’s  _just_  about unconscious before leaving him there. In her words which are actually his words, but I only ever hear them in her mocking voice now,  _oooh, the anticipation._ ”  


	58. Chapter 58

Judge pauses, one foot half-way lifted up in the air, mouth open mid-sentence, as he stares at the small little cage in the corner of Kore’s room, against the wall with her trophies and sparse collection of noggles.

“Kore?”

“Yeah?” She says as she watches Ordis introduce her new norg into the tank next to her display of her Ember frame. “What?”

“What is that?” Judge asks, pointing at the small little cage.

“It’s a kuaka,” Kore says, “Obviously.”

“What is a kuaka doing on your ship? In a cage? Did you - Kore, did you snatch a kuaka off the plains, put it on a cage, and  _fly it to your Orbiter_?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not  _Alpha_ ,” Judge can hear her rolling her eyes. If she had hair long enough she’d flip it right now, he’s certain. “I traded for it on Cetus. Duh.”

“ _Why_?” Judge asks, turning to her.

“Because you said I couldn’t have a condroc, so I got this one instead,” Kore says, softly clapping her hands together as she inspects the norg through the glass. “Hello, beautiful.”

Judge turns around towards the larger tank in the middle of the room to see that Ordis has switched her large sharrac in her smaller tank out to the main tank in order to make room for the large pink norg.

The sharrac, despite having any real face, looks immensely pleased with the change in living situation.

Kore quickly walks over to the control panel for her displays and starts entering something. Judge watches as Ordis’ mechanical appendages snatch fish out of the auxiliary tanks on either side of Kore’s Ember display and puts them in with the sharrac, who ignores its old-new tank mates gamely. Judge is pretty sure that in the wild sharracs would eat these fish.

Meanwhile, Kore’s yogwun is morosely swimming in place in the tank to the right.

“Why would you even want a kuaka?” Judge can understand why Kore would want a condroc.

It’s a very large and mean looking bird, why wouldn’t she want one?

But a kuaka? It’s a little rat that hops around and runs away very fast. It’s not particularly intimidating or dangerous or even interesting.

“Why not?” Kore says as she watches her fish settle into their new living arrangements. She casts a sharp look to her side at the yogwun and frowns at it. “ _You_  are still a problem. I’ll figure out why you’re broken eventually.”

“What does it even do on your ship all day?” Judge asks, turning back to the rodent and carefully walking closer. The kuaka watches him with beady red eyes before it starts grooming itself with its paws.

“It’s not for me, it’s for Joy,” Kore says.

“You kavat?”

“Do you know any other Joy’s?” Kore replies, bouncing down onto the bench against the side of the main tank as she starts to take off her boots. “Yes, my kavat. The one that isn’t the Pale Rider, Ender of Worlds, Destroyer of Realities, Harbinger of Despair.”

“I thought you liked her now that you had her genetically modified?”

“I’ve always loved the Shatterer of Perceptions,” Kore replies, tilting her head at him as she lines her boots up. “It’s out of respect that I call her these things. She can’t be limited to the banal normalcy of a name like… _Spooky_  or Clarice or whatever.”

“Right.” Judge shakes his head as he kneels down next to the kuaka cage. “And how does Joy like her new…friend?”

“She likes it,” Kore says. “Sometimes she sticks her paw in there just to touch its tail or its feet. And then she stares at it for a while.”

“And?”

“And? That’s it.”

“Huh,” Judge shakes his head and takes off his glove, slowly lowering his hand towards the cage. The rodent’s nose twitches as it turns towards him, stretching its head out towards his fingers.

“I wouldn’t,” Kore says, and Judge stops just before his hand gets close enough to touch the wooden bars. “It bites.”

Judge turns to her over his shoulder as she swings her legs up onto the bench, arms folded behind her head as she watches him.

“It bit you?”

“Nah, it bit Isha when he got too enthusiastic. The rat isn’t so fond of the kubrow. Too much energy. It also doesn’t like Empress. Smells too much like Infested, probably.”

“But its just fine with Joy?”

“Kavats eat the Infested and there’s no such thing as a high energy kavat,” Kore replies, wiggling her toes as she tosses her gloves on top of her somachord, causing the holograph of the dancing Octavia on top to flicker out and cast odd lights. “Let the rat come to you. Don’t push it.”

“Treat it like you?”

“If my legs were longer I could kick you.”

“But they aren’t,” Judge says, grinning at her as he sits next to her feet on the bench, yawning.

It’s been a long day of multiple drops. They got a lot done, harvested plenty of crafting materials, and explored tons of new places. Judge has loads of new information to run with and Kore looks like she’s got out all her pent up energy for the next week out of her.

Judge is guessing that they’ll just be hanging around their ships for a while.

“How does it like Spooky?” Judge asks, relaxing into the cushions of the bench, the back of his head resting against the cool, thick glass of her main tank.

Kore shuffles closer so she can rest her legs over his lap and lie down at the same time, folding her hands over her stomach. Kore quickly pushes her hips up and undoes the sash around her waist, throwing that on top of her gloves.

“ _The Herald of Doom_  likes the rat but the rat is indifferent,” Kore replies, yawning into her hand as she makes herself comfortable on the bench. Judge reaches underneath the bench and taps on the panel that will open the hidden compartment. He pulls out one of Kore’s many, many blankets and throws it over his lap and her legs. Kore wiggles her toes in approval. “If it makes Joy happy it was worth it.”

“How much was it?”

“Some spinal claws and condroc wings,” Kore says, “Nothing special. Besides, I wasn’t doing anything with them anyway.”


	59. Chapter 59

“Persephone,” Judge groans as she hands over some materials to Master Teasonai. “Just because I’m repurposing a moa doesn’t mean you get to bring a condroc onto your ship.”

Kore’s crouched down among the many, many condroc cages, head tilting back and forth as her shining black Saryn optic plate examines the many mean looking birds.

“I’m getting a condroc, I’m putting it on my orbiter; I will love it and feed it and bring it out for exercise and I will teach it to hone in on my enemies and rip their flesh off their bones,” Kore says, “The question is - which one of you beautiful, beautiful creatures is the  _first_?”

“You  _aren’t getting more than one_ ,” Judge says.

“At the same  _time_ , no,” Kore says, “But later, after the first one is settled…they’ll need kin to talk to. I imagine it must be very, very tedious to be the only creature of your species in an enclosed space.”

“Persephone, for several years you were the only tenno in your own life,” Judge points out.

“That’s different,” Kore waves her hand and raises up a little to investigate some of the condroc cages hanging from the tent ceiling. “You’re comparing norgs and lungfish.”

Judge is about to argue that it is not different at all when he sees a flash of familiar violent pink out of the corner of his Nova’s field of vision. He turns his head and sees Chic’s Trinity briskly walking behind Alpha’s regal white and blue Oberon.

“Oh, hey - “ Judge calls out, sending a hail to their frequencies as he waves at them.

Chic waves at him and quickly gestures for him to follow her, but runs into Alpha’s back with a startled yelp when Alpha stops walking right in the middle of the spaces between vendor stalls.

Alpha is staring at something ahead and Judge turns around to try and see what he’s looking at.

And his heart stops in his chest.

“ _Operator!?!?_ ” Scylla’s voice immediately yells at him, voice glitching in and out with stress. “ _Your vitals! Operator!_ ”

“Kore,” Judge wheezes, Nova’s hand reaching towards Kore’s Saryn blindly, and just getting air. “ _Kore_.”

“What?” Kore asks, sounding like she’s not really paying attention.

Judge just wheezes because…

It’s  _her_.

Through the crowds of Cetus there is a black and red Saryn striding towards Alpha. A black and red Saryn  _Prime_. And as the frame draws closer Judge can see the sigil on its chest, and he can see the elegant flare of its syndana and he can see the stoic and proud Helminth Charger sedately following at its side and he can also see that in one hand the frame is dragging Punk’s blue and yellow Ember behind it.

Chic taps Judge and Kore into her audio feed.

Punk is groaning.

The Saryn, with almost no effort, throws the Ember at Alpha.

Alpha catches Punk, immediately pours him out onto the ground - Punk groans even louder as he’s deposited at Chic’s feet - and goes to meet the Saryn.

“This one is done,” the Empress announces into the feed. “I’ll have to wait for him to recharge before I use him again, I suppose.”

Alpha and Empress stand so close that the chests of their warframes touch and the skirts of Alpha’s Oberon curl around Saryn’s legs with the light breeze that blows through Cetus.

Judge’s Nova continues to try and grasp Kore’s hand.

Scylla is still having a fit over the fact that Judge isn’t breathing. Parts of Judge are also having a fit over the fact that he’s holding his breath because he’s too terrified to breathe.

He doesn’t know why his void nightmares and poisoning don’t have him hallucinate the Empress to scare him. It would work approximately one hundred percent of the time.

Then again, maybe the void ghosts and poisons are too scared of the Empress to take her name and image in vain.

“Empress,” Alpha says.

“Alpha,” the Empress says back.

And Alpha slowly, agonizingly slowly, stretches his Oberon’s neck forward and touches his face-plate to the Empress’ Saryn’s.

The Empress coos a sound that might be a purr, might be a laugh, might be the end of the world.

Judge finally manages to let out a single wheeze and instantly the two warframes are staring at him across several yards as though he was right next to them.

If Judge were standing there in the flesh, his knees would probably have gone out. Lucky, he isn’t, and Nova’s limbs are locked.

“The stray,” the Empress says.

“I didn’t  _know_ ,” Alpha replies.

And then the Empress’ head slowly turns and Judge knows that she’s looking at Kore.

“He found his partner,” the Empress says.

“Persephone,” Alpha answers.

The Empress makes another sound like the coming of death and  _starts walking towards them,_ Alpha at her heels.

Honestly?

Judge is still at least seventy eight percent terrified of Alpha, even though he knows that the tenno is gentle and worries about the food stores of the population of Cetus, adopts all the stray animals he can find, and often gives things away just because he has them and he feels that he should.

Judge will never, in any lifetime, overcome the absolute incomprehensible  _horror_  he has of the Empress. It just isn’t possible.

The Empress walks right past him up to Kore and somehow even though both Kore and the Empress are in Saryn Prime’s, it’s Empress who seems to take up all the space in Teasonai’s trading post.

“Hello, little sister,” the Empress says in a voice that reminds Judge of the underside of leaves, deceptively soft when they’re covered in barbs that are both buzzing and smooth. “I remember you.”

Persephone doesn’t say anything.

Judge tentatively turns around to look and Kore is frozen in place.

The Empress leans forward and bumps her Saryn’s horn against Kore’s.

“You are the only other Saryn Prime pilot I’ve met since our latest awakening,” the Empress says, “Most fortunate. It gladdens me that you find yourself again, and are awake to your potential.”

Persephone might as well be a rock. Judge tentatively pokes her with his void energy.

Nothing.

Did Kore leave her frame out of shock? Did transference snap? Is she just sitting in her Orbiter in silence?

“ _Hi_ ,” Kore breathes out - startling Judge, Chic, and Punk (Punk, who revives enough to raise Ember’s head a little and go  _what_ ) because she’s bypassed her frame’s voice synthesizer and is speaking with her actual  _voice_. “Please take me as your student.”


	60. Chapter 60

Kore looks beyond disgusted at him as she bends down, hauls her kavat up, and starts to step backwards away from him.

Joy looks entirely entertained by this. Kore isn’t tall enough or large enough to actually carry Joy entirely, so she’s just hugging Joy’s upper body to hers, with the rest of Joy dragging between her legs.

“You hacked and took a moa as your own,” Kore says, “Why would you even  _want one_? Isha farts and he breaks ten of them.”

"Maybe Isha just has a powerful fart,” Judge says as he continues to tinker with the moa frame he’s working on. “I didn’t  _steal_  it, either. I just… _borrowed_  it and now I’m making alterations. It won’t even look the same by the time I’m done with it.”

“That's terrible, you don’t have any sense of aesthetics,” Kore replies immediately. “Put it back where you found it. You didn’t let me have a condroc.”

“You know, when I said you can’t have one, I didn’t actually think you’d listen to me? Like. In our lives you have never listened to me. How was I supposed to know that was the one time you’d actually listen to me?”

“And now I never will again,” Kore says, grunting with effort as she drags her large pink kavat down Judge’s ship. “A moa. Of all the things - a regular one even. It’s not even one of the  _nicer_  moas. It’s just a standard, boring, camera and long legs and pathetic laser beam moas. You didn’t get the one with sonic blasts or the one with the osprey deployment or the good laser beams or the hard stomp. You got the  _standard one_.”

“It’s the standard because it’s easier to modify, Kore. If I got a specialized one then I’d have to work around its enhancements instead of adding my own. Besides, I’m repurposing this moa for my own needs. I thought that’d be something you’d appreciate.”

“It’s a moa,” Kore says. “I’d say I eat them for breakfast but I’d have to eat a thousand to get full.”

“I think,” Judge says as he steps away from the mess of circuits and wires and exposed parts on the work table and turns towards her, stretching his arms and carefully turning his head to stretch his neck, “That you’re just biased because you really hate the corpus.”

“And you don’t?”

“I dislike the grineer more, the opposite with you, I think.”

“The grineer have a united system of loyalty and hierarchy and a code,” Kore says, “The corpus are just greedy old parasites who’d do anything for anyone to turn a credit.”

Judge privately thinks that Kore likes the grineer because they’re easy to mess with, and some of her favorite targets are grineer in that they make it very easy for her to mock them.

Alternatively, the Corpus annoy her because they almost always just send machines to do their dirty work, and Judge thinks they remind her of Ballas and the Orokin.

Kore’s never said as much but Judge is fairly certain her knows enough of her to make these sort of conclusions.

And of course.

Alad V.

“I’d rather have a shield osprey,” Kore says, “Can you steal me one of those?”

“You have blueprints for that,” Judge points out, “You have tons of specters of them.”

“But it’s different,” Kore says. “And you’re modifying this one.”

“Just modify one of yours then,” Judge says. “You modify your companions all the time.”

“That’s  _genetic_  modifying and it’s done - usually - before they’re even really anything. The Bringer of Peril is different, she was a special case and I had to consult external help for her. I’m not so good with…the machines.”

“The machines,” Judge repeats raising an eyebrow.

“The machines,” Kore repeats, hugging Joy’s body closer. Joy’s eyes narrow a little as she starts to purr, the fan of her tail slowly swishing back and forth with pleasure. Joy wiggles a little as she tries to twist around to nuzzle Kore’s face.

Kore releases Joy and Joy turns into a puddle of kavat on the floor of Judge’s orbiter as she squirms around Kore’s legs and bats at Kore’s upper body.

Kore nods once, “The machines.”

“Right,” Judge shakes his head as he gestures her to come over. Kore steps over her cat and walks up to the table with the mostly dis-assembled moa. “I’m going to give it a new personality matrix and everything. I’ve been taking notes from Midas because if there’s anything this thing should be like to be the least threatening to me it’s Midas.”

“Pure unbridled enthusiasm without any concept of danger and what it means to be dangerous?” Kore says, sounding skeptical, “If anything I’d want it to be like Chainsaw. Terrified of everything, even itself and fully aware of the patched together horror it is.”

“I thought you liked Chainsaw.”

“I talk this way about all the things I like, Judge,” Kore rolls her eyes as she leans forward to inspect the moa pieces. “I talk like this about you.”

There is an entirely unexpected bubble of warmth that swells up inside of him.

 _Kore likes me_.

(He’s being dumb, here. Of course Kore likes him. He’s always known that.

Kore loves him.)

Judge just barely manages to wrestle the stupid grin off of his face when Kore turns to him and asks, “What color is it going to be?”

“Of all the questions I knew you’d ask, I didn’t think  _what color_  would be the first one. I was thinking…what weapons would I put on it, or what would be its failsafe, or something,” Judge admits.

“If you leave it green everyone’s going to know you took it and all the corpus you like to mess with on a near daily basis are going to start getting ideas,” Kore says. “So what color are you going to repaint it?”

“It won’t look at all like a standard moa when I’m done,” Judge says, “And I was thinking - “

“Magenta,” He and Kore say at the same time.

Kore’s grin is quick and soft like a flower petal that’s been cut by a sword.

“Predictable.”


	61. Chapter 61

Judge stops short, staring at the fish in Kore’s side tank. It stares back.

He drops the external suit parts he had taken off when he went to crash on Kore’s bed. Or, to be more exact, the external suit parts, boots, gloves, shoulder guard, amp brace, knee pads, hat, and mask Kore had him take off as she forced him to go to sleep in her room where she could make sure he was doing it and not getting distracted by the millions of other projects he has on his ship. At the time Judge thought she was being very bossy, but after a good ten hours of sleep he recognizes now that she was, as she usually is, entirely correct in her course of action.

If she’d just sent him to sleep in his own Orbiter in his own room he really would’ve gotten sucked into the millions of other projects and theories he’s always cycling through. He’s got ten of them on displays arranged right above his bed and another six within the line of sight wherever you turn from the bed.

Scylla had  _suggested_  that maybe he change those displays to something more soothing. Less work oriented. By suggested, Judge means that she kept subtly trying to shift each individual pixel into something else when he wasn’t looking but he figured it out eventually and had her change them all back. Scylla was a mix of both contrite and disappointed her plans were discovered.

Kore’s own room is decorated very sparsely. She has a three noggles - Judge is pretty sure she stole all three of them from his ship during one of his more dangerous and out of control phases of hoarding, some small insignia’s from the syndicates, four or five ayatan sculptures, the cage with the kuaka, the cage with the condroc, a small floating tree, and one ( _singular, just the one, he has no idea how she has an entire Orbiter and only one of these)_  display screen picturing a shot of one of Earth’s overgrown forests.

It is, in its own way, very relaxing.

Except for this part.

“You need to put this thing back right now,” Judge says to Kore who’d been sitting in meditation next to her new condroc when he woke up. Judge isn’t sure if Kore’s really meditating. Maybe she’s just sleeping with her eyes open.

“I worked hard for that norg, I’m not putting him back now,” Kore replies. “I caught him. I stabbed him about ten times and he kept coming back for more, so he knows he’s mine. He’s acknowledged it.”

The norg stares at Judge angrily. Furiously. Lividly. There aren’t enough adjectives for  _mad_  in Judge’s vocabulary.

“No, you need to put it back,” Judge says, taking a step back away from the tank, feeling very vulnerable. “It’s sentient, it knows, and it’s going to come for you as soon as it figures out the best way to strike.”

“You need to go back to sleep,” Kore replies calmly, slowly rolling her neck as she stretches her arms. “Maybe you’re still asleep and you’re sleep talking? I don’t know with you. Your foolishness knows no bounds, apparently.”

“Kore, I’m serious. This thing looks  _mad_ ,” Judge says, unwilling to break eye contact with the fish that’s just  _angrily_  floating in place, frowning and glaring out at Judge with its little black beady eyes.

“You had no complaints when I caught it,” Kore says. “Besides, that’s just how they look.”

“That can’t be how they look. It didn’t look like this when you caught it,” Judge protests. “And no fish is just…They don’t have a genetic predisposition to look  _angry_. Or like they’re  _plotting_  or actively scheming against you.”

“It’s face is the exact same face of every other norg I’ve caught. They just look like that. Your brain just reads it as anger. It’s their default face, Judge. You know what - it’s a fish. It doesn’t even have a real face. And I’m pretty sure its eyes aren’t the ones on the body, but the ones on the end of its weird whiskers.”

“Gross,” Judge grimaces. The very large, very pink, very bulbous, and very mad norg  releases a string of bubbles. “Ok. No. Really. It’s sentient. It’s evolving as we speak. And it’s very mad. Put it back.”

“I’m telling you, that’s just how they look. Check out the small one I put in the big tank.”

Judge slowly turns, dashing out of sight from the large norg and moving to stand close to Kore as he searches her larger tank. He catches sight of a much smaller, much more reasonably sized norg swimming a circuit around the tank, just past a medium sized eel.

He waits for it to swim closer and when it does he steps back and holds his clothes up against his chest like a barrier.

“The entire race is sentient with a hive mind and they’re plotting,” Judge determines.

“You must be asleep still,” Kore decides.

“Kore, that isn’t the face of a fish. That’s the face of a very bitter, spiteful, vengeful, and hateful person thinking about how to inflict the most suffering on its chosen target and is just biding its time,” Judge says. “Look at that face! That’s not right!”

“You know what else isn’t right, Judge?  _Ugly_. Look at that face and tell me that’s also not a very bitter, spiteful, vengeful, and hateful person thinking about how to inflict the most suffering on its chosen target of  _you_.”

“Kore, that’s different. You’re wrong about Handsome.”

“And you’re wrong about my fish,” Kore replies. “Either go back to sleep, because I think you need it, or go back to your own ship to talk you crazy theories.”

Judge goes back to his ship.

And he clears some displays and pulls up everything he knows about norgs. Because when they launch their take over he’s going to be ready and he’s going to tell Kore he told her so and then he’s going to figure out a way for the two of them to survive the inevitable fall out of the norgs evolving enough to carry out their ill will towards the entire system.    


	62. Chapter 62

Persephone fumbles on her own two legs. The distance is wrong. Everything about it is wrong. But it is also right. It is the same as adjusting to a new frame, she supposes. But this is her.

Her legs wobble. They’re unsteady, unfamiliar, and unreliable. They are thin sticks that she has to somehow figure out how to use to carry her own weight as she stumbles over the slick floors of her Orbiter, Ordis worrying in her ear every two steps and urging her to return to the Transference chamber.

But there are things she must learn. There are things she needs to remember.

There is a deep weight in the depths of her soul that aches to be worried, pulled, nagged,  _yanked_  out into the harsh and golden light of the sun in the center of the system.

And Persephone cannot stand her own ignorance.

So Persephone stumbles, at times grasping against the Orbiter walls that have no hand holds, with hands that haven’t had a need for grip-strength in  _centuries_ , sweating in her suit, tired, head-pounding with effort, and body aching with dis-use. She stumbles, she falls, she hits her thin limbs against things when she falls and it hurts but she drags herself back up anyway because this is part of remembering.

It’s the same as falling in a frame. It’s the same as being in a frame.

The only difference is that there is a power inside of her that burns, it fizzes and sputters and it slides through her body in a way she doesn’t know how to direct except outwards in a blast of heat and uncontrollable light.

In a warframe that energy becomes poison gas. It becomes a ring of flames. It becomes a wave surging forward and a globe of piercing ice. It can become whatever she wants it to be with so little thought or direction.

In her own body, Persephone can only think to keep that blazing light inside of herself instead of spilling out into the Orbiter and burning metal and shredding vital pieces of machinery to keeping herself from the vacuum of space.

Persephone eventually makes it to her arsenal.

“Excalibur,” She says.

Ordis pauses in the middle of simultaneously trying to talk her into getting back into transference, and beating himself up about not being able to get her back into transference and thus into a warframe where she won’t make an embarrassing spectacle of herself trying to walk two feet.

“Bring out Excalibur,” She repeats.

Saryn Prime is  _her_. Persephone knows this, she can begin to understand the shape of the memory now. Saryn Prime was the frame she belonged in.

But Excalibur, she is starting to remember, was her first body beyond her body. Excalibur was the first frame,  _her first frame_. It is in Excalibur that she became a  _Tenno_ , an  _Operator._ It was Excalibur that allowed her to escape herself, for a time.

She has known Excalibur as herself longer and more intimately than she has known her own body of flesh and blood and Void.

It is through Excalibur, first, that she will remember the rest.

Ordis hesitates before bringing Excalibur out. There is a tug in what Persephone thinks is her soul that tells her this.

She closes her eyes and she can feel them. Like teeth. Like fingers. Like strangely detached parts. The faint traces of her in them, distinct in the way she is shaped through them, and the way she shapes them.

Excalibur comes up in familiar colors and Persephone places her palm against its arm. It is a strange sensation of being  _both_  Excalibur and herself as she has Excalibur sit next to her.

Persephone takes off the suit, and her skin prickles against the cold.

Cold.

She has not felt cold like this. When she is cold it is because she is in snow, it is because she is facing some sort of arctic blast on Venus or Europa. But this cold?

She has never been _cold_  or  _hot_  on her Orbiter. Or on a space station that wasn’t currently undergoing some sort of extreme malfunction.

Persephone’s skin prickles and she brings her arm close to her eyes as she examines little bumps of flesh raise along with the fine, fine hair. She runs a fingertip over it, shivering and startling herself.

“Raise the heat,” Persephone says as she finishes taking off the suit, kicking it to the side as she sits close to Excalibur, raised flesh all over her skin as she puts her hand back on Excalibur’s back.

“Yes, Operator. But what are you doing?” Ordis asks and moments later she feels hot blasts of air as Ordis quickly tries to regulate the temperature to something more moderate. “What if the Operator gets…sick?”

Can she get sick?

What is being  _sick_?

(A flash of a memory of fever. Heat. The smell of damp skin and stagnant, sickly breath. Darkness. Heat. Oppressive air. Sweat.)

Persephone shakes that memory out of her head as she begins her examination.

She puts her hand on the ball of Excalibur’s shoulder and then one hand on her own. She presses her thumb down and feels the resistance of Excalibur’s muscles. She presses her own thumb down, and she feels very little muscle and bone. She slowly moves her hands, the hand on her shoulder following the hand on Excalibur’s as she draws closer to her neck.

The bones here protrude more on Excalibur, and that is familiar. On her own body they also stick out, but not like this. There is a coating of skin and muscle, the bones themselves feel rounder. Gentler.

Persephone’s skin feels soft. It feels warm.

She counts the bones on Excalibur’s back, feeling the details of the way they protrude as she compares them to her own. There are major differences. The ribs feel different, too.

Persephone’s ribs feel different from what she expects.

Persephone expects what she feels on Excalibur, instead she gets something smaller. Softer. Rounder.

As she runs a hand down her arm and down Excalibur’s she feels how truly different they are. She has Excalibur flex its hand, slowly opening and closing its fingers into a fist and she copies the movement with her Tenno hand. Her Tenno hand is weaker, but the fingers are thinner, more tapered. Almost like Saryn’s, or Oberon’s. Finer. Excalibur’s are more blunt.

Excalibur has a wider palm.

Persephone has Excalibur put its hand on her back and feel her tenno body’s breath.

Persephone closes her eyes and focuses on breathing.

Her tenno body’s heart flutters. It’s very fast. She can feel it through Excalibur’s palm. And her tenno body’s ribs are prominent. This is, she thinks, not supposed to be. It is more likely a problem with maintenance that may change over time.

Excalibur’s body is more familiar.

A memory slides free.

Her hands, Excalibur’s hands, as she is taught the way of the sword under watchful Dax eyes. The unfamiliar movements of her own body, larger, broader, more powerful and built with a distinct purpose in mind. But powerful and invulnerable in its own ways. A challenge to learn and discover.

Her chest flutters as she remembers.

Excalibur was her hands when her own hands were no longer capable.

A thought slides free, instead of a memory.

Persephone is capable.

Persephone can learn.

She opens her eyes and turns towards her Excalibur who turns back to her, waiting.

These were her hands.

She looks down at her pale, small fingers. And these  _are_  her hands.

They close into fists, weak and small and tense.

But that can change.

(Persephone is done being chased out of her own body. The frames are all her body, but  _this one_  was hers first. And it will be hers when all the others have gone. It is time, Persephone thinks, to clean house and return home.)


	63. Chapter 63

Kore wakes up all at once, the sound of drums - heavy, ostentatious, soul-shaking, and  _right_  in how she inwardly cringes against them but knows that they are her  _life_  - still strong in her ears. The light cast off from the distant sun is cool, refracted off of Europa and onto the large wide window of her room.

She can hear the sounds of the bubbles and the water constantly being recycled through the large tanks around her, and the dim light that comes from within helps her define the outlines of her ship.

“Ordis,” Kore whispers, mouth barely daring to move - but she has one, Kore thinks to herself, she has a mouth. She has a voice. She is far away from the Orokin and shackles and prisons and guards and forced demureness. “Ordis?”

“Operator, why are you awake?” Ordis’ voice is soft, quiet, like he doesn’t want to disturb the night, either.

Kore’s mouth feels dry but her skin prickles with sweat.

It was a dream. It was a memory. It was a bit of both. Kore has long learned that dreams and memories can often be confused.

Neither are any better or more comfortable and safe than the other.

Kore pulls her arms underneath the blankets and curls herself tight, drawing the thick fabric around herself as she closes her eyes and listens to the sounds of her ship in orbit.

She can hear the light rasp of the kuaka’s claws as it does whatever it does at night and she can hear the sounds of water, and she can hear the soft snoring of Isha and Hajra by the door.

Kore opens her eyes again and she sees Hala and Valencia squeezed together on the pet bed she had bought and put by the window.

Against her back the Pale Rider, or Joy, is a warm solid bar.

Kore reaches down into herself and tugs, feeling her warframes come awake. In her mind she runs her fingers over and through them, like putting her hand in a river and watching her fingers split a solid thing into streams.

Her fingers brush something solid, and her fingertips curl and tug.

She pulls her Rhino up towards her, out of the depths of her Orbiter, out of storage.

Saryn Prime is the warframe that fits her soul the best. This is without question.

But Rhino is the warframe that has always made her feel  _safe_. He is not her strongest frame, her fastest frame, her deadliest frame, or even her most powerful frame. But there is a feeling that she has when she uses Rhino that she is untouchable. That even if someone were to punch a hole through Rhino’s chest it would never reach her heart.

Rhino is a shield that has infinite breadth and depths and will never shatter, bend, break, or fall.

Kore listens for the sound of the doors to her quarters opening, and she feels Rhino moving towards her, called by the link of her soul. Rhino stops and kneels by her, a large, ominous, and familiar shadow.

“Ordis,” Kore says softly, “Tell me about the Orokin. Tell me about the golden halls. Tell me about their glass and their jewels and their power.”

She and the other Tenno are what remain of the Orokin. They were Orokin once, weren’t they? But afterwards, they were not. The Orokin saw them as animals, cattle. They were not people. But she was Orokin once.

Not Orokin like Margulis and Ballas.

But she was something, once.

When Ordis speaks again, his voice is much closer, not whispered but still gentle, and skewed towards the middle. That place where he allows more of who he was to rise to the surface, where Ordis allows himself to remember himself more fully as Ordan Karris.

“The Orokin were beautiful,” Ordan says as Kore’s Rhino gently picks her up and holds her against his wide chest. Kore untangles a hand from her blankets and places her palm against Rhino’s chest and warmth quickly covers the frame in a net as she closes her eyes and settles in against it. “And their capacity for cruelty was also beautiful. Like watching gladiators in a pit. We hated them. We loved them. We loathed them. We adored them. They were neither the best nor worst of us. Maybe they were the purest of us. So pure they became poison. So pure that they became nothing at all.”

Nothing at all, Kore thinks, marvels. Kore has been many things over many  _centuries_  and somehow remained  _Kore_. She has always returned to  _Kore_. Even if it has taken her time. Even if it is still taking her time.

(Kore cannot remember what she was like before she boarded that ship with the people who were her parents all those centuries ago. Kore cannot remember being two, or three, or four. Kore cannot remember eight or nine. Kore cannot remember a life before the Zariman Ten Zero.

Kore cannot remember a person before the Zariman Ten Zero. She was one, she knows. She must have been a person. She must have been something. She must have been Kore, but that Kore has been lost to the expanse of space and the dust of stars and there is no tugging or pulling or fretting at her soul that can bring that Kore back.)

The Orokin and their endless obsession with life and beauty and eternity and power and they are nothing. They are empty towers and names whispered with scorn. They are ghosts that people banish like annoyances, like flies, like sneezes.

It makes Kore want to laugh a little.

The sound of drums still echoes in her blood.

Rhino’s arms tighten around her and she feels a nudge against her foot as one of her kavats puts a gentle paw on it. She doesn’t open her eyes to check which one.

“The Orokin were very clever and very vain,” Ordan muses, “But did they not earn the right to be vain? How does one earn vanity?”

“By being the last one alive to claim it,” Kore mutters.

Ordan laughs.

“Shall I unpack my moons for you?” Ordan asks, gently. “When one is no longer a being of flesh and time and constriction, I find that it is much easier to speak of your sins.”

Kore nods.

“You should sleep Operator, but if you cannot then listen,” Ordan says, “And learn from the mistakes of the Beast of Bones. And may you grow strong on my foundation.”


	64. Chapter 64

“You kept your boots,” Judge says. It’s…not the weirdest thing he’s come out with. It isn’t even the most off-tangent thing he’s said to her in his time consciously knowing her. It speaks volumes to the way she knows him that she doesn’t even trip over that opener.

Kore just shrugs and says, “I’m not breaking in another set.”

Judge’s first action as a newly awakened Tenno - person, not frame - was to get new boots. No, that’s not exactly true. He did a bunch of other things first, but the first thing he did for  _himself_  as in, like, taking care of himself as a person not a concept, was to get new boots. Because the ones he had were tight and while they were comfortable in that they were all soft and broken in, they were starting to get small.

Kore is still wearing her boots from their original cryo-sleep after the War, the Zariman boots. He knows she’s got others lying around somewhere, he’s just never seen her wear them. She’s changed her transference suit style about three times since he’s known her as awake, but the boots are always the same.

Judge doesn’t know why, but for some reason that’s really comforting to him.

Kore puts said boots to the side before she straightens up and starts to unbuckle and unstrap the plates that go over her chest and stomach.

“Shouldn’t you take the shoulder part of first?” Judge asks, gesturing to the large caplet and metal cauldron on Kore’s right shoulder.

“This part is more uncomfortable.”

“So you’d rather break in a full body suit than boots?”

“Your feet are your foundations,” Kore gives him a bland look, “Based on how you keep tripping over yours, you’d think you’d know that by now.”

“I haven’t tripped on myself in,” Judge counts off on his fingers, “ _Five whole drops_.”

Kore rolls her eyes, “It doesn’t count if you just keep using Titania to fly around. She doesn’t need feet.”

“Untrue, how do you create a trampoline effect if she isn’t using her feet?”

Judge wants to ask Kore why the sudden change. Why is she now red and white and black and metal plates and sharp metal edges instead of flowing cream and layered pink? He wants to ask why she switched out the casual and flowing suit she had for this new one? This new one that reminds him of soldiers from the origin system.

She’d say that he’s the detective between them, to figure it out.

Sometimes there are things he wants to hear from her own mouth, instead of through his own deductions.

-

“So…you and the Alpha?” Judge asks.

Kore’s head snaps to him and her Rhino looks as incredulous as it can given that Rhino has even less recognizable facial features than most other warframes. Judge isn’t sure if he can tell Kore’s emotions based on how well he knows her or maybe she’s just so expressive she can get it through a warframe’s lack of face.

“Now? Really?” Kore’s got one arm up, the flames of her Aegis roaring over Rhino’s arms and shoulders as she holds herself in place to protect their cargo. She gestures with the flaming Silva towards the Grineer gunners shooting at them, “You want to talk about our alliances with other tenno  _right now_?”

“You’d have run away otherwise,” Judge protests, raising  Mag’s fist and jerking several snipers out of position before aiming his Boltor and pinning them down. “You’re friends with the Alpha?”

He knows this is true because she’s slightly nicer to Alpha than she is to everyone else, except him. He has no idea how that happened because Kore’s…kind of mean and a little selfish, and Alpha doesn’t really talk and is overall an extremely generous person who worries a lot. But the two get along and sometimes when Judge goes to look for her, her Cephalon says she’s running missions with Alpha.

“I don’t know,” Kore replies, Rhino’s head jerks and Spooky appears out of stealth crouched next to her, hackles raised. “Give them hell. Aim for the optics.”

Spooky vanishes in a glimmer of gold and moments later the Grineer gunners start flailing around, falling over backwards as sparks and blood fly from gauges left on their face plates.

Rhino stands and charges forward, shield folding against its arm as it raises the Silva to attack.

“You don’t know if you’re friends with the Alpha?”

“Are  _you_  friends with Alpha?” Kore replies, “He’s just there, Judge. Like, I don’t know, a decorative statue or a holo-screen. Or a Helios.”

“I think Alpha does a lot more than a holo-screen or Helios.”

“Probably, but you wouldn’t know it,” Kore points out.

Which is true, Alpha gets most of his work done when no one can see him and are therefore terrified of the unseen and unknowable.

“I think I’m friends with the Alpha,” Judge says, “I mean. I think he worries about me?”

“He worries about everyone,” Kore says, “You talk to him, though.”

“You don’t talk to him?”

“Judge, I barely talk to  _you_  sometimes,” Kore replies.

Which is…actually true.

“You can be friends with someone without talking to them. We spent years not talking to each other.”

“That’s not a choice, Judge, at the time you didn’t have the mouth and I wasn’t about to ruin that,” Kore says. There’s no real heat to it, just facts. “I don’t know. I’m sure we’re allies. We both hate New Lokka’s guts.”

“I didn't know that Alpha could have negative feelings,” Judge says. It sounds like a really weird thing to say about someone until you’ve met the Alpha, who’s lowest opinion on something is neutral.

“Why are you asking?” Kore asks before backhanding a Grineer Scorpion with the Aegis so hard that they go flying.

“I like knowing that you’re making friends,” Judge says.

Sometimes Judge wakes up from strange dreams where Kore is in trouble and he can’t get to her and there’s no one he can ask for help because  _no one else knows Kore_. Sometimes he has dreams where he wakes up and there is no Kore, here never was a Kore, because Kore was all in his head and there’s no one to prove otherwise.

Sometimes Judge is afraid that he’s dreamed her all up. He can’t tell if that’s his own unique brand of messed in the head or the Void poison and hallucinations learning him deeper and better.

“Allies,” Kore insists, leaning Rhino’s weight down on its right foot as she crushes a gunner while holding her shield up against fire from a ballista, “They’re not friends, Judge,  _they’re allies_. Come on.”


	65. Chapter 65

Kore finds him in the storage room of his ship, wedged between two crates of protein supplements and nutrient brick. She doesn’t even say anything, which somehow makes him feel worse. She just kicks his ankle until he moves over and she wedges herself in there with him.

Any other time and Judge would be both awed and excited by how close they are. They’re crammed together, touching shoulder to thigh and Kore did it voluntarily and everything.

Judge cups his hands over the back of his head and presses his forehead to his knees. The position is cramped and awkward but it’s helping him keep steady.

“Five Earth rotations,” Kore says, finally.

Judge has been out of cryo-stasis for five Earth rotations. Kore has been out for longer, but she hasn’t told him an exact number.

“Chic made you a cake,” Kore says.

Judge knows, she told him to come and get it. She had set up a small party by the shores of the lake in front of Cetus. Some bread, some honey, a small and precious block of butter, fruits,  nuts, some candy, and of course some fried fish and vegetables so that they actually get full.

He’s supposed to be there in about an hour and his ship is orbiting around Uranus.

“Alpha has most of this dogs,” Kore continues. “I don’t know. That’s what Chic said. I think it was a bribe to get me to show up.”

“I don’t think anyone knows how many dogs Alpha actually has. Or kavats. Or chargers,” Judge mumbles into his knees.

“Alpha does,” Kore shrugs against his side. “The Empress might show up, too. That’s what Punk said.”

“I’m glad you talk to them when I’m not there,” Judge says.

“I didn’t, Ordis took messages. He’s a little annoyed by it. You’re going to make it up to him later. He doesn’t like taking messages because you won’t answer your coms.”

He wonders why they didn’t just leave a message with Scylla.

Kore hunches down against his side and he feels her rest her head on his shoulder, rubbing her cheek against him as she crosses her arms.

“Are you settling in for a sleep?” Judge asks, turning his head a little to look at her, and sees nothing but fair pink.

“Well, I don’t think you’re going to make this short enough for a nap,” Kore says, “And even you wouldn’t be able to stay moody and morose long enough for a van Winkle. I’m going in for a sleep.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be here to make me feel better?” Judge can’t help asking. She already is, though. Just by being there. Judge has no words for how ridiculous his own head and heart is.

Kore grunts and shushes him.

Normally this is the part of their conversations where Kore sleeps or plays with one of their kavats or kubrow or something while Judge returns to whatever he was working on with her in the background.

But Judge’s mind can’t focus.

“You’re going to find her.”

Judge’s entire body loses whatever peace Kore had brought and goes tense.

“You’re going to find her,” Kore repeats, “Because you’re the greatest detective and smartest Tenno I know, even though you use that big head of yours to make fake problems like norg conspiracy theories. But when you actually have a real problem you’re the best at figuring them out. So. Relax. Enjoy today. You’re going to find her.”

“Kore.”

“Besides. You have me,” Kore mumbles, leaning her weight against his side and lowering her head so her pink hair fills his vision. “I don’t know what could stand in our way. But it’s nothing that we can’t handle together.”

Judge swallows around the large lump in his throat, eyes stinging.

He might not have ever truly trusted the Lotus. But he wouldn’t ever want to lose her to  _Ballas_. And if Ballas is around who knows what kind of danger will follow for them?

She’s the Lotus, shouldn’t they have been able to find her by now?

For Kore at least, he has to find her. The Lotus was the only voice Kore had for so long. Her only direction.

She shouldn’t also be Kore’s burden and blame, even if Kore is wrong in thinking it is.

“Yeah,” Judge says eventually, “Together.”

-

“How hard would I have to punch this thing to get the airbag to deploy and send someone shooting into space?” Punk asks as he examines an escape pod that’s been partially fused to the Corpus ship because of the damage from Infested.

Kore, turns away from him and feels a small part of her bubble in satisfaction when the weight at the end of one of Nezha’s streamers smacks Punk in the back of the head.

She has no idea how she got onto this squad and onto this mission, but so far it’s mostly been Punk saying stupid things like that and then trying to find out the answer. And then Chic yelling at the result.

It’s  _loud_.

Judge isn’t here. He’s off somewhere with Alpha collecting samples of something in some cave.

The Empress  _is_  here, though. Kore’s just not sure where. She’d gone off about five minutes after their drop in with a wave that sent poison spores down a corridor and set off a series of explosions that actually rattled the ship before disappearing into the miasma.

Kore wishes she could do that. Nezha’s too obvious for that kind of disappearance.

They’ve mostly secured their objective. The other team that dropped and came in through the underbelly should have scrubbed this entire ship’s computer system clean and gotten everything they could’ve possibly needed by now.

The rest of this is just a bonus.

Nezha’s energy is a bright and laughing thing wrapped around her bones as Kore double checks the levels of their life support.

She’s wanted to go to extraction for the past fifteen minutes and they  _have_  been getting there but Punk keeps getting distracted, then Chic gets into it, and Kore has to wait for them to finish because she’s not breaking into that. They have to find the Empress, too.

It shouldn’t be hard, based on the sounds Kore can hear through the metal walls, the Empress’ spores are still going strong and she should be around somewhere close by.

A ceiling vent rattles from above them and Kore looks up. She’s got the energy to spare so she prepares some spears, ready to launch as soon as the next wave comes down on them.

But instead of Infested, a Tenno drops down. Kore doesn’t realize it’s a Tenno at first, because the first thing she puts together is  _dragon nikana_  and then  _energy field_.

But then the Tenno lands, and straightens up, tossing long black hair over a thin shoulder as the she looks at them.

“You kept me waiting at extraction,” The Tenno says, the flickering lights catching on the gleaming horns at her temples. “What keeps you?”

“Hey, Empress,” Chic says, “Tell this dumbass that he can’t kick an escape pod so hard it launches its contents into space.”

“Depends on how hard you kick,” The Empress says and Kore stares because she’s never seen a  _tenno_ wield a blade. It’s long in the Empress’ hand and the Empress is…somehow not at all what Kore expected.

Maybe someone tall and imposing like Alpha.

But the Empress is actually maybe shorter than her with long black hair and a simple black and gold suit. Kore can’t see the Empress’ void scars. Her eyes are dark red. Like Infested flesh.

The Empress smiles at her, and without looking fires a blast of black energy past Kore. Kore doesn’t need to turn because she can hear the scream of Infested burning away.

“Shall we?”

“Where’s your frame?” Chic asks.

“I left her at Extraction,” The Empress shrugs, “It’s faster through the vents.”


	66. Chapter 66

“Kore, stop,” Judge says, “You dragged me across the sol-chart for that warframe. You could at least  _try_.”

“I  _did_  try and I got snatched by Zanuka. I was rescued by  _Punk and Chic_ ,” Kore snaps as she tries shoving her Vauban into a garbage compactor, “I’m never living it down.”

“Kore, that was ages ago. And technically it was just Chic and me doing the rescuing. Punk was there to be rescued too.”

“Even worse,” Kore replies darkly.

“You don’t mind that Chic and I had to rescue you.”

“Why would I?” Kore asks, honestly confused as she stops trying to cram her Vauban into the garbage disposal. Her Vauban cautiously unfolds and stands up before returning to stillness. “Chic is an impressive shooter and your tactical knowledge has grown in leaps and bounds since when you were the fool I picked up on Earth.”

“And Punk is a very good crowd control and honestly one of the best distractions from getting launched off a ship dock by a grenade,” Judge says.

Kore makes a face before turning around and pushing her Vauban back into the square chute.

“Kore, you know you’re going to regret this. Come on, calibration just takes time with some frames. Didn’t you say that you couldn’t really get Hydroid for a few  _months_? And now you’re just fine with that frame.”

“No, what happened was Hydroid’s abilities didn’t synch well with mine and then we figure out fishing and  _then_  I figured out how to use him for  _fishing_. Specifically for fishing. Nothing else,” Kore says, crossing her arms and scowling.

“And maybe you’ll find a very specific situation to use Vauban for too,” Judge replies, looping a finger through one of the bands on Kore’s sleeves and lightly pulling at it, “Give it time. I mean, you gave me time and I turned out fine.”

“I can’t flush you out a garbage chute,” Kore says but jerks her head and her Vauban starts walking back towards storage. “I hate it when you’re the reasonable one.”

Judge wants to point out that he usually is the reasonable one, but he has a feeling that if he says it now she really will try and push him out a garbage chute.

“Go back to talking about Norg conspiracies,” Kore says.

Judge frowns at her, “It’s real and it’s coming, Kore. You’re going to thank me when it happens and I have plans ready for it.”

Kore rolls her eyes, pulling her sleeve free from his finger, and walks back towards the guts of her ship to continue her cleaning. Judge doesn’t know how Kore gets rid of stuff so easily. He keeps wanting to tell her not to throw things out. Like - you never know when you’ll need used bullet shells, right? Those can be recycled for something cool.

Handsome uses them as toys all the time, for one thing.

-

There’s an Excalibur lounging on top of an outcropping of rocks jutting out of a hill. Its black and golden details glimmer in the morning light as it watches him back with its head propped up on a fist.

It lazily raises a hand and waves. Judge feels a tap in his mind, as if someone was tapping on glass in his head.

He recognizes the person on the other side and cautiously opens his mind.

“Fishing?” the Empress asks, “It’s poor in this spot. The fish have moved to the other side of the coat. I watched another Tenno in that exact same spot for the better part of the morning since dawn. Not a single catch.”

“Oh, thank you,” Judge says. “You’ve saved me a lure.”

She shrugs a shoulder and yawns through the connection, “Persephone?”

“Mars, I think,” Judge answers, “Or Ceres? I’m not sure. She’s trying to train her Dethcube to not be so aggressive.”

“It’s a Dethcube,” Empress says, then she points a finger up and snaps. A Dethcube - styled in white and gold - comes immediately darts out from the bushes nearby, its golden optic flickering. Empress has attachments on it, giving it sharp wings that irritatedly shutter as it whirrs in the air.

“She’s Persephone,” Judge says as his Helios goes to scan Empress’ sentinel. The Dethcube holds still for it before flying to hover over the Empress’ warframe.

The Empress doesn’t reply but he feels the ripple of her void energy shift over his like a laugh.

Judge freezes as his sensors pick up rapid moving heat signatures converging on the area - too fast for Grineer foot soldiers, possible Ghouls? Infested? - but then he sees the kubrow cresting the hill and he relaxes a little.

It can’t be anyone other than -

An Oberon appears over the hill and calmly slides down on slender hooves until he’s standing on the rock ridge just above where the Excalibur is lounging.

Alpha is holding up several fish tied together by their tails and he tilts his head at Judge before nodding silently.

The Empress slowly stands up, stretching Excalibur’s arms over her head and then casually kicks back at the rocks behind her causing a small cave in.

Alpha clicks through his speakers a few small kubrow come up to him, tongues happily sticking out of the sides of their mouths as Alpha hands them fish.

They squeeze into the hole one after the other.

“Is that where you’ve been hiding the fish? The ones for…uh. The cousins?”

Alpha nods, scratching one of the larger kubrow behind the ears as it presses against his side. Empress leans against the slope as she watches the kubrow go in and out, some of the dogs occasionally pausing to nose at her or butt against her legs.

Actually the dogs haven’t stopped coming, there must be more fish elsewhere aside from what Alpha was carrying because they keep going in with fish.

Judge wonders how long Alpha spends every day fishing and how often he does it. He can’t imagine it because Alpha’s also busy doing tons of reconnaissance for the Tenno and the Steel Meridian.

Alpha descends the slopes towards him and says, “Poor fish.”

“Empress told me,” Judge says, “She told me to try the other bank.”

Alpha points behind him, from where he came from, “Mortus lungfish.”

“Thank you,” Judge says and Alpha turns towards the North, slowly walking away.

The dogs follow after and Empress turns to put the rocks back before nodding at Judge and following.

It is possibly the least intense interaction he’s ever had with them and Judge is incredibly grateful for it.

Except the Empress says, “See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

Empress’ Excalibur turns to look at him over its shoulder and she says, “Kuva hunting. You, punk, Alpha,  _me_. Time to see what you can do.”


	67. Chapter 67

“How far down do you think this vent shaft goes?” Judge asks Kore as he peers down a large, long, and ominous gas vent just outside a Corpus factory on Jupiter.

His scans aren’t able to pick up the depth - it goes down a long ways.

“No, put that down,” Kore says. Judge glances over and sees Kore struggling to wrestle a Corpus body part - a leg, or maybe an arm? It’s hard to tell with the padding on their suits sometimes - from her kubrow’s mouth. “I don’t want it, you don’t want it - I bet it doesn’t even taste good.  _Put it down_.”

Isha seems to think that this good sport and a game so he keeps his jaws clamped shut around the bright yellow wrapped body part, tail wiggling furiously as his ears perk up.

“This is all Cadmus’ fault,” Kore says as her Titania digs her heels into the metal of the platform around the vent and tries to pull back, “Isha knew what was a game and what wasn’t before Cadmus came in.”

“And here I was worried that Isha would be the bad influence,” Judge muses, “Kore, how far down do you think this goes?”

“Isha, I’m warning you,” Kore says firmly, releasing the body part and putting Titania’s hands on her narrow hips, “Put it down.  _One_.”

Isha drops the body part and immediately looks contrite, flopping down on the ground, ears drooping as he wines.

Kore sighs, picking up the body part and tucking it under Titania’s arm, giving the kubrow a pat on the head. “Good.”

Kore throws the body part - it’s a leg, partially attached to some flaps of skin and cloth that might have once been  _hip_  - at him. He holds it.

“Well,” Judge says, “I don’t want it, either.”

“Throw it down,” Kore says, “Track its progress and listen for the sound it makes when it goes splat. I’m sure our Cephalons can calculate the depth of the shaft based on the fall.”

“Right,” Judge says, “Did you hear that Scylla? Can you get a lock on this?”

Scylla’s voice chimes in immediately and so clearly that Judge winces, “Of course, Op- Operator! Scylla is more than happy to do so! Scylla can do it. Scylla can most certainly do it. Scylla will make sure to do it.”

“Thank you, Scylla. I’m going to drop it now,” Judge replies and tosses the leg over into the vent.

Titania sits down a few feet behind him, Isha walking over to her and flopping down to shove his head into Titania’s lap.

Judge steps back from the vent and waits.

“Tracking,” Scylla says. “Tracking progress.”

Scylla begins describing the conditions of the fall - speed, acceleration, temperature as it falls to deeper levels -

And then there’s a suddenly loud rushing sound and the vent bursts out with a huge cloud of hot gas that Judge can feel even standing a few feet away.

“Oh.” Scylla says abruptly. “Scylla - Operator. Scylla lost the target.”

“That’s alright, Scylla,” Judge says, as the vent roars out with pressurized vapor. “I’m pretty sure the target doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Scylla is so sorry, Operator. Scylla is - this is unforgivable and inexcusable and - “

Judge grimaces as Scylla’s voice begins to glitch out and scramble.

“It’s okay!” Judge says quickly, “It’s fine! Don’t worry! I’m not mad!”

Something this him from behind and Judge yelps as he falls down hard onto the metal platform around the vent.

Kore’s Titania is bracketed above him, “It still exists.”

“What?”

And then there’s a loud  _crash_  and they both look at where Judge had been standing. There’s a small dent in the platform as well the splattered, charred, and disgusting vaguely linear shape of the leg. It’s burned, corroded, and bubbling.

“Oh.”

Isha goes to approach it and Kore stand up immediately, dashing over and pointing out one of Titania’s long thin fingers, “Isha don’t you  _dare_.”

-

Judge startles awake, arms and legs jerking out and sending piles of circuits and half-worked on projects scattering over his Orbiter’s floor. Handsome hisses and then yowls before sulking away and Midas starts barking.

“Judge,” Kore says, shaking him, “ _It has a cat_.”

“What? What has a cat?” Judge asks, mind shooting off into a thousand directions, not a single one making even the smallest bit of sense.

Kore waves her arm, eyes wide and face flushed with excitement, “ _It has a cat!_ ”

“What has a cat?” Judge asks as Kore shakes him, “What? What did I miss?”

“Simaris is offering a reward for participants in his latest project,” Kore explains, breathless with excitement. “He wants to test combat with his data. If you complete certain rounds in certain time limits and patterns in the Sanctuary where he can study you, he’ll give you schematics for a new frame.  _And it comes with a kavat_.”

“Simaris has had - wait.  _Why does Simaris have warframe blueprints_? Just now? He’s just been -  _hoarding_  them this entire - this doesn’ t- Start over?”

“He broadcasted it, just check your communications. He’s sent messages to every Tenno on the general communication frequency,” Kore says. “Judge, we have to do this.  _I want it_. I haven’t cared about investing in getting a warframe schematic so much since Nidus. Judge.  _Judge_.”

“Okay, okay, hold on,” Judge says, running a hand over his head, scratching at the back of his scalp, “Let me just. What time is it? How long was I asleep? Why am I in a bed?”

Kore sighs, rolling her eyes and groaning, “Judge. Just open your messages already.  _Come on_. Kavat. Frame. Now.”

“Just give me a second,” Judge says, standing up and shivering as his bare feet touch against the cool Orbiter floor. When did his boots get taken off? Judge doesn’t even remember - when did he go to sleep?

He’s awake for sure because he doesn’t think his void poisoning hallucinations would pull something like  _Kore wanting a cat themed warfare_ at him.

At least, not like this.

It would probably be a lot more disturbing and violent.

Then again, if this is Simaris.

It probably will be disturbing and violent.


	68. Chapter 68

“You dragged me across Ceres for  _days_  for this?”

Kore’s Saryn looks no less intimidating, no less regal, and no less judgmental for the lack of any facial expressions. Even with the voice scrambler of Saryn’s audio speakers Kore manages to convey a level of exasperated bafflement that comes across as clear as the Sun over Earth’s curve.

“Yes,” Judge replies through their internal communicators, “Just. Look. Scan it, alright?”

Scylla is already running the cipher that will translate the data it into something he can understand while maintaining the integrity of the texts’s original untranslated meaning.

Saryn makes no motions but after a few moments, a few after Scylla transmits the decoded fragment to his visuals, Kore deadpans, “It’a a  _poem_. You had us overturning barrels and machines, ripping apart factories and peeling back paneling for a weird little figure that when scanned gives you a coded and scrambled  _poem_.”

“Not just a poem, Kore,” Judge says, “A poem  _fragment_. There’s dozens more of these across the system. We need to find them all to complete it.”

“Who put them there? Why do we need to complete - “ Kore cuts herself off and just sighs heavily. “I don’t want to know. I don’t know what I’d do if I knew. Just - where are they?”

“I don’t know,” Judge shrugs as he goes over the lines a few times, “They’re hidden. The Kuria are hidden, you have to search for them.”

Saryn’s arms fold across its chest and Kore says slowly, “They’re  _hidden_. Across the entire Origin system. And they’re the size of our fists, and we have to somehow uncover them on planets and moons and asteroids?”

“We’ve done harder things,” Judge points out, “It’s fun, though, isn’t it?”

“Your idea of fun is backwards,” Kore replies, “What happens when we know the entire poem?”

“I don’t know,” Judge says, “We’d just have the entire poem, I guess.”

“What’s the poem about?”

“I have theories - “ Kore snorts. “ - but I’m not confident enough to say for sure. I’m missing a few key pieces that would really solidify my ideas and give me some direction.”

“Direction, he says, like searching for this Kuria isn’t completely without,” Kore mumbles. “Well. Lack of evidence hasn’t ever stopped you from telling me your theories before. I don’t see why it should start now. Give me a preview, I guess. I only have the one scan. Give me something to look forward to.”

“It’s a theory that holds very little water, Kore,” Judge says, gesturing for her to follow, “Come on. I’ll explain as we get out of here. Can you get some spores going?”

“Was that a legitimate question?” Kore asks as they jump off the platform onto crowds of about to be dead Grineer. Saryn’s arm extends with a simple and elegant - almost lazy - flick and Grineer begin to scream as large toxic blooms spread over their bodies.

-

“Kore,” Judge says. He speaks as quietly as he can, but his voice still picks and carries and expands in the hollow chamber of the Yuvan Theater. “There’s nothing left here.”

Outside of the dream state they were sent into by the Grineer Queens - in the cold reality of this place, the real tangible version of it - there is no red light to illuminate the stone and the tattered remains of what was once golden.

The only light is the spotlight Kore’s Saryn shines on the dusty, fogged glass around the central area of the chamber. Kore stands in front of the light, her shadow long over the glass and debris.

As he gets closer he can see dust floating in the air, and the faintest stirring of Kore’s hair in the wind that must flow through the collapsed parts of the theater.

“Did we ever pass through here, Judge?” Kore asks. Her voice is not soft or quiet. Kore speaks and her voice - in comparison to his attempts at whispering - are loud and bold and daring. They disturb the mountain and the motes and whatever ghosts exist here. “Were we ever bought and sold? Like cattle? Like stock?”

“You know I can’t remember,” Judge says. “Let’s go. Kore, we - there’s nothing here for you.”

“How would you know that?” Kore asks, stepping forward and reaching out, putting her gloved palm on the glass. “I remember something like this. It felt familiar - in the surge. But I can’t remember the details of it anymore. And I’m trying. This time I really am trying. I want to remember. I can’t - not knowing - I hate it. Not knowing. I need to know this.”

“Kore.” Judge stops short of being able to reach out and touch her. “Please.”

This place disturbs him. It makes his skin crawl. It makes his insides churn. This place brings back a feeling of dread and anxiety and fear, but he can’t remember if he was ever somewhere like this either. Judge can only remember the dark, the chains, the moistness of his own breath against his skin, captured by the metal muzzle or the bit.

“Did Ballas get me here?” Kore asks the air. “Is this how I came to be his possession? Not for Continuity, but for research and tests and his precious Saryns? Where was I before? Where did they keep us?  _What was my price_?”

Kore turns to him, the light of their frame’s spotlights glittering in her eyes and washing out her skin and hair, making her Void scars stand out harsh against her face.

“Judge, how much was my freedom worth?”

“I don’t know,” Judge says. “Kore, whatever price it was - does it matter? You’re free  _now_. They’re dead. We killed them. The Orokin are gone. We outlived them. And no one is going to buy and sell us like this again. We aren’t tools anymore.”

It’s taken them centuries, but at last they are each themselves again. Masters of their own fate.

As Kore would say, commanders of their own souls.

“Are we?” Kore asks, voice cracking, “Are we, Judge? There’s so much that’s hidden from us, so much we don’t know. Are we really free? Are we really ourselves?”

Kore turns back to the glass and hurls her fist at it, snarling. A flash of energy lights up the area around them before dispersing.

“If I was really in control of myself then  _why can’t I remember anything_? I want to remember. I really want to now. I want those memories because I’m tired of being surprised by my own  _past_. I want my truth.”

“It will come. You’ve been remembering,” Judge says, stepping forward and putting his hand next to her fist on the glass. “Kore, we’ve all been remembering. It’s just slow. Please. Let’s just go.”

Kore lets her arm fall limp at her side, and her body ripples with golden-blue energy as she dissipates into Saryn again.

Judge follows her out in his Nova.

“Kore,” Judge says as they’re getting to their retrieval units. “Whatever you remember - whenever you remember it. Just. It’s over. It’s the past. It’s a memory. Whatever haunts you - it’s gone now. You can leave it behind. Okay? Just. Just remember that part.”


	69. Chapter 69

Judge doesn’t expect to see Kore on her ship - he’d just wanted to borrow a few of her ciphers, she always tons of extra ones just in case - because she was due at the Red Veil for some sort of promotion or reward.

“It was over that fast?” Judge asks. He always figured that their ceremonies took forever, they seem the type. The Arbiters, unexpectedly, are the same. Their rank ups take forever because a million people speak and give speeches and make you do vows and stuff. It’s all very pompous.

“No,” Kore looks troubled as she finishes unbuckling her shoulder pads and gently folds them. Her brow is furrowed, “I think they want me to join a ritual cult?”

“A what?” Judge’s eyebrows raise.

“A cult,” Kore repeats. “About…feelings?”

Judge blinks. “Are you sure you want to go through with that?”

Kore is very passionate. She’s very smart. She’s also extremely tough and Judge knows that if it weren’t for her he’d be lost in space - literally - and have long gone past his breaking point.

But Kore and feelings aren’t the best mix. Not when she’s talking about feelings out loud. Kore’s good at feelings things, she’s just not good at  _dealing_  with feeling things

Not that Judge is one to talk, but at least Kore can get past the  _feeling the feeling_  part. Judge just starts to panic.

“No,” Kore tilts her head as she thinks, “But I want to get paid. And it looks like I’ll get paid? I’ll get something out of it. But I’m worried.”

“About?”

“I think they thought I was someone else? I went in and then there was…weird stuff and I tried to leave but they wouldn’t let me? I don’t know. I think they think I was someone else and now I’m worried that someone else is getting my promotion.”

“How could they mistake you for someone else?” Judge did, once, but it was dark and confusing and there were other factors involved. He figures that in broad daylight when she’s expected among people who consider her a high ranking member they’d be able to tell who’s who.

“I don’t know,” Kore shrugs. “Anyway. I guess I’ll do it? There’s money. Probably. And it couldn’t hurt to try. But just in case can you keep an eye on Red Veil’s announcements and leaderboards to make sure they didn’t give my promotion away? I’ll have Ordis bridge the Red Veil syndicate communications to Scylla while I’m gone.”

“Sure,” Judge says, “Are you sure you want to try the cult?”

“I’m sure I want to get paid. Maybe I can just get the reward and leave after,” Kore says. “What are you doing here, by the way?”

“Ciphers,” Judge says. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to take a quick nap before going out. All this…emotion…made me tired,” Kore says, grimacing. “Ugh.”

-

Kore once told him - “I’m not a thinker. I wasn’t conditioned to  _think_. I was raised a weapon. You think. You plan. You _deduce_. And when you’re ready, I’ll be here. Point me at what needs to be done. I’ll do it.” - and he had wanted to tell her  _no,_  because she isn’t a weapon, a tool, a soldier. She never has been. Because between the two of them Judge might be better at maths and calculations and putting puzzles together but Kore’s mind is a fine honed blade that cuts through uncertainty and touches upon the absolute facts with unerring and unwavering certainty.

Kore can look past all the details, all the false clues and hints, she can see past every doubt and look at the root of something.

That is not the talent of a weapon. That is not the talent of a tool. An object. A thing.

That is Kore, the person, Kore, his partner.

But Judge didn’t say that because Kore is also the person with the words. For all that Kore doesn’t like using them, she has them. Judge’s brain goes in a thousand directions at once and putting the words together to coherently express any one direction tends to go pretty poorly for him.

Kore’s words are kunai, sharp and precise and accurate with every hit. No excess, no waste, no missed target.

How many times has Kore been able to pull him out of his own head, out of his worst moments, with her words? A thousand, a million, an infinity because he knows she’ll still be doing that tomorrow and the day after and the day after until they both finally die for real.

(Or until she gets sick of him and leaves. Call it ego but Judge thinks that won’t happen. She won’t leave him. And he’s not going to leave  _her_.)

Judge doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t know what words Kore would accept instead of harshly recoil from so he doesn’t say anything and  _he_  does what he’s told.

Judge thinks. He plans. He deduces.

But when he’s ready he does not call Kore.

He thinks she’s suffered enough from this entire - this entire  _ordeal_.

Kore’s ghosts shouldn’t haunt her. If Judge’s ghosts are something Kore can banish, hers should be something  _he_  can banish.

Ballas is dead. This isn’t - this can’t be what she thinks it is. There’s some other explanation for it that isn’t tied to Ballas being alive and well and Kore being the source of him.

There are hundreds of other Saryn Tenno in the system. It could have been any of them. It could have been none of them.

It wasn’t Kore.

Judge has a thousand things to say, a thousand things he wants to do to Ballas when he sees him. When he cuts him down.

Judge’s hands don’t shake as he helps Umbra drive the sword through Ballas. He feels satisfaction. He feels - he feels like a job well done. He never knew Ballas except through Kore’s dark moments and he doesn’t want to know him _now_ , either.

Judge watches Ballas fall. He watches Ballas stumble.

“The cycle has been broken,” Judge says. “It’s over.”

Kore can rest. Kore can breathe.

Umbra can let go.

And then the Lotus.

And then, worse - the worst timing though he should have known. Kore always comes for him. Always.

And this time she comes just in time to see the Lotus descend. She comes for Judge just in time to see the Lotus come for Ballas.

Judge feels the familiar warm wave of Kore’s aura and glances her out of the corner of her eye as she steps out of transference and stops there, eyes wide, as the Lotus leaves them both once again.

“Kore,” Judge whispers after the blast of the Lotus’ departure fades from his ears and eyes. “Kore.”

She stands there and walks towards where Ballas was. His blood still on the ground.

“Kore, don’t,” Judge says as Kore sinks to her knees. “ _Kore.”_

 _“_ She left,” Kore says, voice rough, “ _She chose him_. She chose him and her  _mother_  even as she kept trying to be  _ours_. Why? Why did she keep trying to be our mother when she was just going to leave us all along? Why, Judge?  _Why?_ ”


	70. Chapter 70

It isn’t until Judge has returned to his ship - it feels like hours later. Every awakened Tenno in within signal distance must have come following the hoard of Sentient waves converging on Earth. Kore had disappeared in the commotion of Judge explaining and transmitting them data from his Orbiter’s observation systems. He knows that within mere cycles every Tenno, awakened or not, will know.

The Lotus has left them. The Lotus saved the infamous Ballas, murderer of Margulis.

It isn’t until Judge has returned to his ship, adrenaline leaving him, heart rate starting to really pick up with the  _truth_  of what he just saw, what he just  _did_ , what he just  _heard_  settling into him, that he realizes something.

As poetic as it would have been for Kore to turn up with her Saryn at that very moment -

 _It wasn’t Saryn_  that stood behind Kore.

It was Umbra.

Judge turns to his new warframe, mind racing -

How?

He had the Lotus’ helmet, and that was the source of the signal that caused him to search Umbra out but  _how_  did Kore also get -

“Scylla, lock coordinates for Kore’s ship and get me through,” Judge commands, already heading down to the lower areas of the Orbiter to the docking station where their ships will connect. Umbra follows him silently, a strange current in the back of Judge’s head.

It’s different from his other frames. Do the others have any memories? They’ve never shown anything - not like Umbra. And sure they  _move_  but not with - not like this. Like toys, maybe. Like specters - or extremely simplistic AI. But not like Umbra.

There are so many questions, so many theories -  _so many things_ that are filling Judge’s head but right now, first and foremost is the question of why Kore  _also_  had Umbra.

Kore’s ship is silent as he strides through, searching Kore’s signature out.

Her sleeping quarters.

Her Helminth Charger - Void, how can Judge even  _think_  about Helminth now? What is he  _supposed_  to think? No wonder the thing hates Tenno so much. - stretches out in the middle of the floor and looks up at him with her head tilted.

He steps around her and the doors to Kore’s quarters hiss open.

The sound of her aquariums is heavy in his ears and through the first thick segment of water and glass and fish and stone he sees Kore at the large windows, and next to her a figure in black.

Judge quickly walks around the aquariums, pausing with her name on his lips, as he watches Umbra’s hands carefully arrange black fabric around Kore’s neck.

Kore’s bright eyes catch the light and then catch his.

“Judge,” She says.

Umbra's hands fall and the waframe steps aside.

Judge can feel his own Umbra at his back.

Both waiting.

“How,” Judge starts, but can’t finish. “Why?” He says instead.

 _You said you would wait_.

Kore’s eyes look into his, and for a moment - with the black fabric pulled up over the bottom half of her face, and her bright eyes - she is once again  _Untouchable_ but then she slowly sits down on the platform and folds her hands together in her lap.

Her Umbra kneels next to her, hand on the back of her neck.

Judge walks to her, kneeling in front of her and holds out his hand. Kore touches her fingertips - she’s still in her armor, gloves and all - to the center of his palm - and so is he - and she traces the sign for the Lotus into his glove.

“I wanted to talk with you,” Kore says. “Or at least - I wanted to hear you talk. I just didn’t want to be  _here_.” Alone. “And I felt this thing coming from your room. Scylla said you were away and I thought I’d just wait but I felt something. There was this - this beacon? This pulse? And when I got to your room I felt it rush into me. Anguish. Pain. And I thought - I thought it was a perfect distraction. Sort of.”

“And then you saw Ballas,” Judge says.

Kore nods, “And then I saw Ballas. And I didn’t - I didn’t want to drag you into this any further. Ballas is  _my_  fault. I’m the one who brought him here. I wanted to fix it. I wanted it to be  _over_.”

Kore laughs, suddenly, sharp and angry, “It’s been literally over a  _thousand years_ , and it  _still_  isn’t over. Can you believe that, Judge? We’ve been alive for over a thousand years and and we’ve been through so many wars and  _it still isn’t over_.”

“You rushed in,” Judge says, gently.

Kore’s eyes close in agreement.

“I wanted it to be over,” She repeats. “So I started Umbra and I chased Umbra and I used transference on Umbra. And then Ordis sent me your coordinates, right in the center of a Sentient storm.”

Kore turns her head slightly, eyes opening as she looks at the warframe next to her before slowly pulling the scarf off.

Her hood has been removed from her suit and Judge sees the bruises around her neck.

“I was going to leave Umbra behind,” Kore says, “There was no time, and Umbra was still fighting. But at the last moment - the final memory.”

“Isaah,” Judge says and feels the almost sting of the name from his Umbra’s mind. But not overwhelming, not consuming, not like before.

 _We accept this memory,_   _and move beyond its reach_.

“I needed to find you,” Kore says, turning back to Judge, “I thought - I thought you were - “

“I’m not.”

“And  _he_  was there.” Kore’s lips press together and her fingers curl into still held out hand and she bows her head forward, eyes screwing shut. “And so was she.”

“We still don’t know the full story,” Judge says. “It might not be what it looks like.”

Kore breathes in softly through her mouth, shaking her head.

“Kore,” Judge says, slowly closing his fingers around hers, “Kore.”

Kore exhales and looks up at him through her bangs, “Judge, I am a weapon. And from the eyes of a weapon, this looks like a new war. Does it look the same to you?”


	71. Chapter 71

Kore does not meditate often. She has other things to do if she’s going to be still, like  _sleep._ But sometimes she needs to sort things out in her own head. Sometimes she needs stillness, silence, and purpose to both.

She sits facing the great expanse of space, the vast distance between stars and planets and asteroids and moons and planetoids, with her hands folded together, back straight, and her mind ready to cast out like a net. Or pull inwards, like the sea.

Ordis has set the music of her ship to a low ambient thing, steady and dependable drum beats and repeating fragments of melody that lull and rock along the back of her neck.

The sound of the water and bubbles of her aquariums reminds her of  _the Dream_ , it reminds her, faintly of  _Lua_  and the transference from  _before_. From  _before_ she was awake, from  _before_  she was Kore again.

(Kore always? Kore again? Did she ever really  _stop_  being Kore? Or did Kore just…change into Persphone? And then back again?

This is why she is not the thinker between herself and Judge. At least Judge’s thinking is productive. Kore’s just leads her into a spiral of self doubt. Dangerous, lethal even, for someone who relies on the dependability and stability of a steady hand to guide a blade true.)

Kore closes her eyes, lulled by the steady and ever present hum of the Orbiter’s systems mixed with the drum beats and the water’s bubbles, and pulls herself in.

She is unsettled. She is unsteady.

And with power like hers that makes her volatile and unstable. No use to anyone - not Judge, certainly - in this state.

Her energy is warm in her palms, in her chest, and if she isn’t careful it will burn her.  _Control_.

The Madurai focus is dangerous without it - too raw, too volatile, too double edged. She could hurt someone.

She could hurt Judge.

Kore searches within herself, feeling along the dark edges of her mind for what it is that’s put her off so badly. There’s a list of things it could be - Ballas, Umbra, the Lotus, Rell’s man in the wall, Judge’s experience with the man in the wall, the remaining Grineer Queen out for Judge’s head, Teshin’s interest in Judge, the possibility that Ballas came in through her or Ordis - but turning each of these over in her head just gives her a broad feeling of unease.

She is searching for the shard of bone stuck in the soft fibers of her soul.

If she were Judge she would say that she is looking for the piece that does not belong, the fragment that belongs to a different puzzle.

(For Judge, everything belongs to a puzzle. There is no such thing as something solved, completed, and known. There is always more and maybe that’s part of why his mind can never rest.)

Kore feels along the dark compressed pieces of her, the painful nudge of memories she knows are down there - knows she has  _put_  down there.

There are things that Kore knows without saying, without putting into words, and these are the things Kore wishes she did not know.

Ah.

 _We return this memory to the Void and find peace in our emptiness_.

She said this to Umbra.

But it isn’t true.

Kore has never released a memory as cleanly, as freely, as readily as she advised  Umbra to do so.

She keeps them. She keeps them, even if she doesn’t do anything with them.

And she  _doesn’t_  accept them. They  _don’t_  fuel her actions, her passions. They just - they just  _hurt_.

So she puts them here.

Down, down, down, deep and away where they can’t hurt anyone. Where they can’t hurt her anymore.

(Like Ordis.)

Kore isn’t empty. She’s full and festering. She wants what’s forgotten and unknown, and once she remembers she doesn’t want it and tries to forget or ignore it again.

How infuriating.

To become empty though - where would she start?

What she does now, the things she does, her purpose is something else. She doesn’t need this to further herself. She just needs to be free of it so it doesn’t hold her back.

The memory drifts its way out of the dark, buoyed by the fizzling sparkle that slides its fingers  up her ribs and makes her sit up straighter and her throat feel warm and her eyes water.

Of course, this would be her challenge. Her starting point.

_They were nothing but animals by then. So I hunted._

Kore breathes in through her mouth, the sound of it jarring and loud over the shuddering silence she had let herself fall into.

 _I embraced it_.

Kore exhales - if only the memory were that easily lost.

 _I killed my parents_ , her double says to Judge.

Kore feels her eyelids moving, the bare brush of her eyelashes as she tries to put the memories into place without being consumed by them.

The sweet rotting smell, the feverishly hot and damp air, the burning skin, the  _melting_  skin -  _father’s eyes and mother’s mouth, their hair and their teeth -_

Heat builds in her palms as Kore struggles with the memory in her chest.

She survived. She survived. She survived.

(At what cost?)

She survived. She made it here. To Judge and Umbra and Ordis and the rest of them.

(To go straight into Ballas’ hands.)

No. No.  _No_.

Kore’s hands are fists with stars.

She told Umbra that it wasn’t his fault. Ballas did this. And she wasn’t wrong to say that. They were both tools. It is not the fault of the weapon, it is the fault of the person who holds, guides, and releases the weapon.

Perhaps it would have been better if that weapon never existed. But it does. And someone took that weapon and aimed it at something.

Ballas’ wars are not her fault.

She survived.

(Can she survive this memory?)

She survived living it. Didn’t she? She’s here.

Kore opens her hands, and plunges into the darkness.


	72. Chapter 72

“How many credits do you need?”

“And then Persephone gave me that look, I mean, you don’t know the look because you’ve never seen her but it was embarrassing and kind of frustrating but I know where she was coming from and - what?”

“How many credits do you need?” Punk repeats, ramming his Atlas’ shoulder against a jammed door as he tries to bend the warped metal into a shape that they can pry open. “You’re short on credits now, right? It’ll take you a while to get more like this so I’ll give you some.”

“It’s the Index, Punk,” Judge says, pulling energy into his Nova’s hands as he tries to assist Punk in getting the doors open while also keeping an eye out for enemies. They’ve dispatched a lot of Grineer, but there could be more anywhere. “I lost a  _lot of credits_.”

“I know the Index, I’m one of the top ranks in the Index,” Punk laughs, “Just tell me how many credits you need to get back at it. Don’t worry about it. Oh, hold on. I sense Kuva.”

Punk’s warframe glows for a moment before going still, leaning against the door, as Punk lightly hops out of the frame, grinning.

“Gotta get me some of the good stuff,” Punk winks and disappears, a faint tinge of his bright blue void energy the only trace of him, as Punk starts to go off.

“Void,” Judge groans, following after Punk, “Just bring your frame with you. Please?”

“You’re so cute when you say please,” Punk says, “And it’s more fun this way. Gotta stretch your legs and stuff, right? Hey, does Persephone ever hop out of her frame? I mean. She’s awake, right? She’s got to be awake. She can’t know this much about Tenno and stuff and  _not_  be awake.”

“Persephone’s been awake longer than I have,” Judge says, “And she does. Just not…in front of other people. She’s private.”

Punk snorts, “I figured. Anyway, if you’re not going to tell me I’m just going to send you a million credits.”

Judge’s jaw drops and he almost drops out of transference from sheer shock.

“ _One million -_ where are you getting that kind of  _credits_?” Judge asks.

Punk pauses just before he turns a corner, dropping back into regular visibility, void energy dispersing. His eyebrows are raised high and he looks surprised.

“You don’t know?”

“No!”

“Oh.” Punk blinks. “I’m a professional competitor for games. Lunaro, Conclave, Index, Rathuum. I compete in all of them with sponsorships. You haven’t seen me? I’m a crowd favorite. Chic says it’s because I’m good with theatrics. Hey, after this come to my Orbiter and I’ll show you my competing frames.”

“Sponsorships?” Judge repeats blankly.

“Yeah,” Punk laughs, “But wait, after this bit - come on, the Kuva is waiting.”

“Wait - what’s a sponsorship? What does that mean?”

“Kuva first! Money later!”

-

“What happened to Persephone?” the Empress asks, and Judge’s tongue momentarily sticks to the roof of his mouth and then chokes him.

The other tenno just continues to look at him, expectant and patient as he struggles to get over himself.

“She’s been,” Judge’s voice cracks very, very high and he coughs as he tries to get himself back under control. “Uh. It’s complicated?”

Kore’s been angry and upset and off balance ever since - ever since Judge told her about Ballas. She hasn’t taken it very well and he doesn’t blame her. But Judge isn’t certain if giving her space is working or making it worse.

He’d ask her about it but he doesn’t think Kore knows, either.

“Hm,” the Empress presses her lips together, “That’s a shame. Alpha’s been lonely. He enjoyed fishing with her.”

The Empress looks away and runs a hand through her long black hair, throwing it over her shoulder. She flicks her other hand out and a blast of energy flares out, almost imperceptible in the night, before it slams into a condroc. The bird is dead instantly and Empress’ kavat prowls over to pick at the carcass.

“Is it possible to make it  _not_  complicated?” the Empress asks, turning back to Judge.

Judge resists the temptation to fidget.

“I don’t think so, no,” Judge says. The Empress raises one slim eyebrow. “I mean. I… know so?”

He wonders what the Empress would say about Ballas. What she thinks of him.

“Pity,” the Empress says after a beat, obviously waiting for Judge to elaborate except his heart is trying to pound its way up his throat. “Alpha really enjoyed his time with Persephone. And it pleased me that he had someone to keep him company when I was otherwise occupied in things he did not particularly enjoy.”

Judge swears he’s never met a tenno as eloquent as the Empress. She seems very  _adult_  somehow, even though she doesn’t look older than him ore Kore.

Maybe she’s just been awake longer? He has no idea and wouldn’t even know how to ask.

“I’ll…pass it on?”

The Empress nods. “It would be appreciated, Hades. Now, tell me of your endeavors. I notice that you are using a new frame. An Octavia?”

Judge glances back at the glowing frame a few meters behind, where Empress had left her own Saryn and beckoned Judge to follow her for a night stroll.

Somewhere on these plains Alpha is sitting in the dark. The thought makes Judge shudder uncontrollably.

“Are you alright?” The Empress asks.

“Yes, sorry. Um. Yes. And yeah. Octavia. Have you ever used one?”

“In passing,” the Empress says, “Not recently. But she’s a good frame, very entertaining. I much prefer a more personal touch. Intimate, if you will.”

The Empress smiles and she’s probably one of the most beautiful and terrifying people Judge will ever see in his life and that’s counting almost a thousand years of memories that are kind of  not-clear.

“Like Saryns and Excaliburs?” Judge asks.

The Empress nods, “I have been known to dabble in a Nekros now and again. A Nidus when the mood suits. You prefer Nova and Inaros, no?”

“They’re very dependable,” Judge says.

“That they are,” the Empress agrees, “Oh, look. The Teralyst.”

Empress pauses as they crest a small outcropping of rocks over the radiated water. Across the water the Teracyst leads a procession of smaller sentients.

“Let’s destroy it,” she says, and Judge feels the wash of her void energy as her Saryn materializes around her.

“What?” Judge asks but the Empress has already leaped off ready to cross the water.

Judge stares at her for a second before calling his own Octavia around him - “But - ? Don’t we need back up?”

“Hades, you  _are_  my back up,” the Empress laughs, “And Alpha, I suppose he’ll join in if he feels like it.”

“He’s not even - “

“I don’t think you need me.”

Judge screams and turns around. He sees a pair of mismatched eyes glowing from some bushes as Alpha’s long, long,  _long_  body rises up.

The eyes tilts, “Are you okay?”

 _No_.

“Yes?” Judge squeaks.

Alpha’s eyes fade out as he’s engulfed by his Oberon frame. He points out one tapered finger towards where the Empress went and says, “If you do not hurry, you will not be able to get any shots in.”


	73. Chapter 73

“I need you to tell me what you saw,” Alpha says, breaking the silence and Kore startles, looking towards him.

Alpha’s normally expressionless face looks troubled. Kore doesn’t think she’s ever felt any sort of urgency or…pressing emotion from him before. Kore admits that her emotional sensitivity isn’t the best and she’s had trouble reading situations before - granted, being raised as an object and possession to be commanded and displayed will do things to you - but even Kore can’t mistake this from his usual…unreadable-ness.

“What?” Kore asks.

“Tell me what you saw,” He repeats, “She doesn’t care, she doesn’t pay any mind to it. But I do. If  _he_  has returned, I - I need to think.”

Kore has never heard the Empress or Alpha talk about their time under the Orokin, what they were doing before or during or after the war. Somehow it felt like they were always just here, on Earth, doing things. Kore’s still not sure what those things are, exactly. The Alpha only ever goes on missions when the Empress asks him to, otherwise he’s just on Earth fishing and petting wild animals and haunting the plains and forests at night.

“You should ask Hades,” Kore says, “He knows more than I do.”

The Alpha shakes his head slightly, eyes fixed on hers, “You  _know_  Ballas.”

Kore’s fingers curl into fists and she bends her will around her unease, her sense of disrupted self, “It was him.”

The words are whispered, and they seem to make the grove around them shudder.

“There were Sentients,” Kore continues. “He commanded them.”

Like he used to command her. The other Saryns. The other Tenno.

“The Lotus?” the Alpha prompts after a moment, when Kore’s mind draws a blank on how to continue.

“She was there.”

The Alpha closes his eyes.

Kore watches him, waiting. But he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move.

“What did you think of her?” Kore asks.

She can’t imagine that the Lotus ever became  _mother_  to someone like him. Or the Empress.

The Lotus wasn’t Kore’s mother, either, but she was  _something_. And in that  _something’s_  sudden absence, Kore is left floundering for an idea of what that was so she could name it, place it, understand it, and figure out how to not need it again.

The other tenno opens his mismatched eyes and he takes in a slow breath before answering, “Convenient.”

Kore’s eyebrows raise.

The Alpha shrugs, “She provided distractions. Opportunities. But she is not my concern.”

“Ballas?”

The Alpha raises a hand and gestures around them, “Worse than Grineer. What will the Sentients do? Remember. Silvana.”

Kore grimaces.

The Alpha’s hand lowers and his eyes close, “I have been here longer than any Tenno. Since before sleep. Since before forgetting. Since before the Lotus. I have been here before Titania and Silvana.”

Kore’s eyes widen at the implication.

The Alpha looks at Kore.

“Not as long as Saryn,” He says after a moment. “But very long. Never anywhere else. Always here.”

Alpha presses a finger down into the grass.

“From the beginning,  _here_ ,” He repeats. “Earth is  _home_. Earth is  _mine_.”

Alpha’s eyes meet hers once more, and he repeats his first demand with need urgent worry, “Please. Tell me what you saw.”

-

“Scylla? Where’s Judge?” Kore asks, squishing Poppy’s face in her hands as the Kavat purrs happily.

She’d been expecting Judge in the entry, or for him to at least send her a message about where he is on his Orbiter, but there’s been nothing so far. Just Poppy, who’s been rubbing against her legs and mashing his face into her hands like he’s a puppy and not a Kavat.

“Tenno Kore,” Scylla answers, “Scylla’s Operator was having a fit. Some sort of biological malfunction. So Scylla sedated him. And now Scylla does not know what to do, did Scylla do the right thing? What if he hurt himself? What if he broke something very important? But now he is unconscious and Scylla might have given him the wrong dose and what if - “

“Where is he?” Kore asks, playing with Poppy’s ears.

“The observation deck, Tenno Kore,” Scylla replies.

If Cephalons could sound like they’re fretting, Scylla would be in a perpetual state of hand-wringing, lip-biting suspense.

Kore imagines that it must be hell on the poor Cephalon’s computing performance.

She heads up to the observation deck, and starts to worry because the closer she gets the more trashed things look.

Judge’s ship, on a good day - a day where Kore and just strong armed him into cleaning -, can be described as  _cluttered_. And  _mind boggling_.

This is not a good day.

Judge’s things are everywhere, Kore stares at some things that look like they were actually ripped apart.

“What  _happened?”_ Kore asks.

Before Scylla can answer there’s a brilliant flash of magenta and Kore yelps, bringing her hands up - her own Void energy rising -, before Judge comes into clear view, eyes darting from her to everything else.

“ _Shhhh_ ,” Judge hisses, “ _What if it hears you_? Void mode!  _Kore!_  Void mode!”

Judge blinks out of view, and Kore can only catch the faintest ripple of his energy in front of her. Kore shrugs and slips into Void mode also, and she can see - clearer - the faint magenta outlines of Judge’s body.

“What are we doing?” Kore asks, “What did you do?”

“Mimics,” Judge whispers, moving closer to her. “Kore, I need to check my ship for mimics. Anything can be a mimic. And I have…so much stuff. All the stuff?  _Mimics_.”

“What?”

“Mimics!”

Judge blinks out of Void mode and aims his amp at a pile of noggles, “Did you see that move?”

“No?”

Judge’s eyes dart around again, “Look for anything that blinks. Or flickers. Or - like. Visibly glitches? Or looks weird.”

Kore also blinks out of Void mode, but crosses her arms. “Judge. That’s everything on this  _ship_. You’ve got - you’ve got displays on everything. Screens. Everywhere. And all of your stuff is weird.”

“Weird in that it doesn’t belong.”

Kore points to a pile of soggy boots in the corner. “That doesn’t belong.”

She turns around and points at a glyph on his ceiling of a cookie, “That probably doesn’t belong.”

Kore turns around and glares down at Ugly who’d been attempting to sneak up on her, “You  _never_  belonged anywhere in your life and I swear that wherever you came from spat you out into our dimension and feels  _good_  about it.”

Ugly hisses, ears flat, before retreating.

Kore turns around and Judge has gone back into Void mode and she follows the faint trail of his energy as he stalks back up towards the deck.

“Where are you going?” Kore calls out after him.

“Help me check my stuff for imposters!”


	74. Chapter 74

“Alpha?” the Empress repeats, “Ah. He was a Volt before they created the Oberon unit. Not a very good one, as you can imagine. Too still. You could imagine, too much Unairu in him.”

Kore can see it. A single, statuesque Volt, unmoving and completely still, among dozens of others that move with streaks of lightning and buzz with excess energy.

“He wasn’t deployed before the Orberons were made,” the Empress continues, “He wasn’t aggressive enough for an Ember, he was too slow for a Saryn, he wasn’t careful enough for a Mag. I seem to remember that he did alright as a Rhino, but with his silence it was just a poor fit to the way he moved. When they made the Oberons they put him in one for trial and error and it stuck.”

The Empress laughs, winding a long lock of deep space-black hair around a thin finger as she watches Kore practice her Void dash - sliding specifically - “Oh, no, you need to have you palms a little lower to the ground. Not inwards. Outwards. Yes. Good. Project the flame outwards. It’s the same principle as the Zenurik and Naramon schools.”

Kore’s heard of very few Tenno who’ve managed to draw power from more than one school of Focus, but if anyone could do it she trusts it would be the Empress.

The Empress looks up towards the fractured moon and sighs softly.

“They thought they could separate us. But there are just some things the spirit does not forget. There are things that - despite time and space - are not lost. They are written into you. Etched.”

“Yes,” Kore says. Because she knows in the depths of her fizz-cola gold soul that she would know Judge anywhere, any time. Even if he wasn’t important to her before, she would know him still. Now, especially.

Kore could sleep for another thousand, a million, a billion years - as the stars die and planets cool and crash and moons loose orbit.

But she would  _know him_.

And if she ever forgot again - she would remember.

Kore grunts as she skids, loosing her footing and landing on her butt, arms falling out from under her as she crashes onto the loose dirt and rocks of the plains surrounding Cetus.

The Alpha is somewhere around here, she knows, making sure that no one bothers them. Kore hasn’t seen him, exactly, but she’s seen a few of his kubrow - or what she assumes are his kubrow - patrolling.

One of them might be the Empress’ because it keeps coming to check on them before calmly trotting away.

“Recover,” the Empress commands, standing up and calmly void-stepping over to Kore, leaving a slow, barely visible black pool of energy that brushes over Kore with startling clarity that relaxes her muscles. It doesn’t quite feel the same as when Judge does it. When Judge’s Void energy washes over her Kore feels her pulse in her hands and her next breath feels like she’s about to dive off a cliff. “And listen.”

The Empress elegantly folds herself down onto her knees next to Kore, hands in her lap, hair a smooth waterfall of black behind her. The moon seems to make the Empress’ skin glow, and the golden points of her diadem make Kore think of distant stars.

“If Ballas comes here,” the Empress says, “I will slit him like a fish. I do not know him like you do. I was not a favorite like you were. The Orokin put me in a Saryn, realized I was too dangerous for them to ever control, and they put me down here and hoped that the Infested would kill me before I could figure out a way back to kill  _them_. And when I was here I knew  _he was here too_ , so I fought my way across this entire planet for  _years_  to find him. And I did. And the two of us have been here, on Earth, ever since. When the Natah - the Lotus - infiltrated the Orokin and contacted us, we told her we would stay here. So she let us. And we stayed here, we watched and listened to the Orokin fall apart from here, and we went to sleep here. We woke up here. Earth is our home. So if Ballas comes back - and he will, because he is a worm, a leech, and a parasite of the most pathetic self-righteous sort - and when he comes back here know that I will not tolerate his infraction upon this place the Alpha and I have found for ourselves.”

The Empress’ eyes are black in the night, and her mouth is a soft and gentle smile that does not match her words at all.

“Ballas is a coward who whines about the consequences of his inaction and lashes out at others seeking retribution towards those he blames for it,” the Empress continues. “Why are you afraid of him?”

Kore’s throat feels like its closing and she looks down at her boots instead, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs.

The Empress hums softly and Kore feels the Empress put her hand on the golden hook that protrudes from her shoulder pauldron.

“You watched Hades strike Ballas down. You saw him bleed. You saw him whine and squirm like the maggot he is. Think on that, Persephone,” the Empress says. “Think about what you were before, think about what you are now. Does the you who can set trails of fire in your footsteps, the you who can incinerate Sentients with the thrust of your hand, the you who has looked into the faces of Grineer high command spit upon them, the you who has stared down the Void have anything to fear from someone so weak?”

Kore’s fingers curl into her armor and she shakes her head.

“I know that,” Kore says, working the words out around her heavy tongue, “But it doesn’t  _feel_  like that.”

Kore pauses and closes her eyes, and pulls at the feeling of her Saryn, a comforting blanket around her shoulders.

“Well. One cannot always help how they feel,” the other Tenno says, “But we can do something about how we react to the way we feel. You hesitate. It is unlike you, Persephone. Let us remove your hesitation. Come. Your slide is almost completed. Let us smooth the hesitation out of you. When the time comes, you will act.”


	75. Chapter 75

“Somehow, and I don’t know how, Punk was persuaded to part with five million credits, and of course now he’s in trouble,” Chic explains as they walk through the Lunaro stadium halls, “Because  _that’s five million credits_  and I’m  _mad_ , why would he do that?”

Privately, Kore thinks that this seems very in line with Punk’s behavior so far. She’s just surprised that he  _has_  five million credits.

Maybe he doesn’t spend it on equipment. It would explain why he always gets himself downed in missions.

“Why am I here?” Kore asks, making sure her voice is going through her warframe’s scrambler first. Ever since that one time Punk and Chic have been  _insistent_  on trying to get her to use her own voice again. Or make a physical appearance.

Kore had been under the impression that Chic needed her for some sort of mission. A real mission. That involved Corpus or Grineer or Infested or something.

Not solving Punk’s financial problems.

“Because you look mean,” Chic says, “Especially in that Rhino of yours.”

Kore had been under the impression that Chic needed a frame with good defense to protect her while she did something dangerous. Like maintain shields for a hijack mission, or maybe hold a defensive point while Chic searched an area for things she could sell on the market, or something like that. And Kore wouldn’t have minded it because Chic is…tolerable people.

So when Chic had contacted her and asked for Kore to meet her at the relay in her Rhino frame to help her handle something, Kore said  _what time_.

And now here they are, and once again Kore regrets not asking further details.

“And I’m going to shake down whoever took five million,” Chic’s Trinity shudders, “ _Five. Million. Credits_  from Punk and make sure they pay him back with  _interest_  and you’re going to stand there, looking like one mean, mean,  _mean_  Void-nightmare and then I’ll also make sure that I get a cut for my troubles and you’ll, of course, get a cut of my cut for being so good at looking so  _bad_.”

Kore would prefer if Chic would give her a free color schematic like she does with Judge and Punk, but Kore isn’t going to say that out loud.

“And then afterwards we’re going to shake  _Punk_  down and figure out why he  _gave. Five. Million. Credits_  to some rando without a single thought about it and  _didn’t_  ask for any kind of compensation, and why Punk thought it was a good idea,” Chic continues, Trinity’s hands flexing and glowing with soft power at her sides. “And for that you’re going to be switching to a different frame because Punk likes Atlas and Rhino and Atlas are too similar for him to feel true fear from it even if you look very impressive.”

Chic glances over her shoulder, “Do you have a Nidus that looks as mean as your Rhino and Ember?”

Kore’s not sure if her Nidus looks  _mean_  but she nods anyway.

“Good,” Chic mutters softly, “I don’t pay Punk part of my market earnings just for him to give it away to some stupid no-name random person who walks up to him and says  _please_. Void and stars and shit in between, this  _boy_ …”

-

“I am good at one thing and one thing only, and that’s  _sports_ ,” Punk says, “Guys, I’m too old to start over. I am almost  _a million years old_. No one can expect me to suddenly be good at something else.”

Kore wonders if you’re supposed to count the cryo-sleep years. Technically Kore has been, but if Punk is too maybe she’s wrong.

“Punk, before you were a sports boy, you were a killer for a killing empire,” Chic says, “We all were. So it’s not sudden. We’re just saying that if you’re going to come with us we need you to be…less of a kuva-thirsty spazz and  _stick with the plan_. For  _once_.”

“I am  _not_  kuva-thirsty.”

“I almost lost a defense objective because you went off looking for kuva,” the Empress says, examining her sword in the light before returning to sharpening the blade, “The cryo-pod received a scratch, Punk. I continue to be displeased about it.”

Everyone falls silent as a sense of deep fear and dread washes over them.

Kore hopes that someday she can be that intimidating. She hopes the Empress will teach her.

“Of course I did not lose the objective. I do not lose,” the Empress continues, “Still.  _I am displeased by it_.”

“Sorry,” Punk squeaks out, his Atlas frame shrinking down small like his voice as he takes a nervous step backwards and attempts to stand behind Kore.

Kore immediately stomps down with Saryn’s heel and Punk narrowly dodges out of the way, colliding straight into the Alpha’s Oberon.

Oberon’s arms go up around Atlas’ waist to steady him.

Punk whimpers.

“We’re just going to do a few practice runs in simulation,” Judge says, holding his hands out to try and bring everyone back on track, “To work out any flaws in the plan and see what else we could be doing. Just in case. Alright? Come on. Let’s get this done.”

The Empress sheathes her sword, standing up from the planter she was sitting on and follows Judge and Chic as they walk towards Simaris’ chambers.

“Okay?” the Alpha asks Punk, who’s still standing in Alpha’s arms.

“Your, uh. Your girl scares me. A lot,” Punk says.

“Good,” the Alpha replies, “Tell her that. She will be pleased.”

“Pleased enough that she’s no longer displeased with me about that one time that happened…like…half a solar cycle ago?”

“No,” the Alpha answers, gently pushing Punk towards the rest of their group, “The will remember that always. It is too late for you.”

Kore rolls her eyes at the high pitched sound of fear Punk makes. She kicks the back of Atlas’ knee as they pass and Punk yelps, almost going down.

“Just show her that you’ll be less of a kuva-thirsty spazz,” Kore says, “And hurry up about it. I have better things to do than  _run simulations_  for a mission.”

Kore doesn’t, actually, but she imagines staring at the Norgs in her aquarium while listening to Ordis argue with Helminth and her kubrow would still be very entertaining.


	76. Chapter 76

“I thought you hunt and drink kuva with Persephone,” Judge says as he pulls his sword free from a Grineer scorpion’s corpse, “Why are you so obsessed with seeing her face? You’ve seen it?”

“Well. I’ve seen  _her_ ,” Punk replies, “But she always has her suit’s hood up and when we drink she turns around or hides behind something and I’m kind of a dick but I’m not so much of a dick where I’d go and be  _persistent_  about it.”

“But you’d go around her back and ask  _me_  what she looks like?”

“It’s not the same as me trying to peek in on her,” Punk says, idly tossing a kunai up before catching it and flinging it over his shoulder. It hits a Grineer sniper with surprising accuracy. If Kore saw it she’d be impressed. “Paint me a word picture.”

“Pink,” Judge replies immediately.

“Ok, I figured that much. She changed her suit recently, though. Still pink under that?”

“Pink hair,” Judge amends.

Punk points in the direction Chic had went off to, in search of ammunition and credits in lockers and supply crates, “Pink?”

“I think we’ve had this conversation before,” Judge says. “Why are you so invested in figuring out what Persephone looks like anyway?”

“And that’s another thing, do you call her Persephone  _all the time_? Does she call  _you_  Hades all the time? Do you guys know each other’s birth names? It seems weird that you know  _my_  birth name but not your girlfriends.”

Judge’s stomach feels a little fluttery at the word. Girlfriend. Such an old word. He likes it though.

“I know her name. And everyone knows your real name.”

Sometimes Punk puts  _Jude_  on over the signals and relay broadcast requests instead of  _Punk_. Everyone knows that Punk and Jude are the same tenno. Everyone. Judge is pretty sure even the Grineer know it.

“I call Persephone by her name when we aren’t planet-side, or when we’re alone,” Judge says, “Like when we’re on our ships and we’re working on something together.”

Punk  _ooo’s_ , “So you’ve been on her ship, have you? How did  _that_  come around?”

Judge’s mind dredges up that first disastrous boarding attempt, and Kore’s - in hindsight, very appropriate - fury.

“Not so good, actually. But we’ve got a system now,” Judge replies.

Something whizzes past Mesa’s head, Judge can feel the faint stirring of her bandana, and Punk’s hand raises up, catching a still-quivering Spira. Its red ribbon dangles elegantly.

“If you two are done,” Kore says through their group’s channel - voice, of course, synthesized modulated, and scrambled - , “Can we  _go_? I’ve got  _tube men_  to crack open.”

Punk flicks his wrist and the spira goes flying over his shoulder, right into the eye socket of a Grineer bombard.

“You never sound as peppy as you do when we’re busting Tyl Rygor,” Punk says.

“It’s the  _anticipation_ ,” Kore mocks.

-

“Hm,” The Empress hums, tilting her head, “Fascinating.”

And then her fist pulls back and she punches Punk’s Atlas straight in the ribs.

The Warframe - amazingly enough -  _lurches forward_  and there’s a bright blue light as Punk stumbles out of it, rubbing his side and looking confused.

“What?”

The Empress examines her black gloved hand, eyebrows raising. “Interesting. So it works.”

“What works?” Punk asks. “Why did you punch me?”

The Empress shrugs, “I was curious. Continue with what you were doing.”

Punk looks nervously at Kore. “Uh…”

Kore shrugs. She’d seen the Empress do it while Punk was talking about  _sports_  but she doesn’t say that.

Punk nervously goes to step back into his Atlas. The Empress watches him expectantly.

“Are you…going to do it again?”

“A theory becomes a law through consistent results over repeated experimentation,” the Empress replies.

“Uh?”

“Perhaps,” the Empress says, waving her hand, “Do continue. You were talking about…the Conclave? Something involving the Conclave or one of your several sporting events. Carry on.”

“I’m kind of scared to,” Punk says.

Kore would be too.  _She’s_  never been punched so hard that she’s  _flown out of transference_. Kore didn’t even see the Empress using Void energy in that punch.

The Empress takes one step back and pointedly gets swallowed in her Excalibur frame. She then sits down, and puts her nikana over her lap and gestures for Punk to continue.

“I forgot what I was talking about,” Punk says to Kore.

“If you think I was paying attention,” Kore responds, “You are overestimating how much I care about  _sports_  by a great deal. I literally just asked you  _one_  question.”

“Oh, right. What was the question?”

“Have you seen Hades?” Kore grinds out, because she’s been standing here listen to Punk talk about  _sports_  for what feels like  _ages_  all the with supposed promise that information on where Judge is, is somewhere in there.

“No,” Punk replies.

Valkyr’s hand curls into a fist, “You said  _yes_.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Punk’s Atlas rubs the back of its head, “I mean. Maybe? I thought you meant, like, in general, have I seen him. And  yeah, sometimes I see him at Conclave with Chic and they’re watching the games. But today? Nah.”

Kore looks at the Empress.

“I have not,” the Empress says, “Seen your partner today. Is something the matter?”

“He escaped,” Kore says.

“He  _escaped_?” Punk repeats.

“He’s sick,” Kore says. “His Cephalon had him in quarantine but he had one of his…things where he didn’t want to do the sensible thing and  _recover_  so he snuck off his ship and now his Cephalon is three seconds away from fragmenting with worry.”

“He got  _sick_?”

“Fell into a river on Jupiter,” Kore says, “As a Tenno.”

“Yikes,” Punk says, “I’ll help you find him. We’ll take him to Cetus. They’ve got people there who can heal you. They know some of the old ways of healing. And maybe they’ll knock him out for you, too.”

The Empress stands up, affixing her sword to Excalibur’s hip, “I will message the Alpha. Hades needs to take care of his body. Persephone, finish checking the relay. Punk go to Cetus. Alpha will check the plains. I will contact Chic and have her keep an ear to her contacts in the trade circuit.”

“And you?”

“I will check the other relays. And make it known that I am most concerned for him and that I would very much like for him to be returned to his ship, post haste,” the Empress says.

Kore doesn’t know why but she feels a shiver of dread down her spine.

She really, really hopes that someday she is a  _faction_  of impressive as the Empress is.


	77. Chapter 77

“Alright," Kore says as she reloads her Hek, momentarily pausing to jump over an icy debris field. She’s surprised at how much she likes this shotgun. She’s always been partial to long distance guns, but the Hek is surprisingly easy to handle and the recoil doesn’t mess up her shots at all. “Let’s hit extraction and get out of here. We have two more factory locations to shut down and I’m tired of Jupiter already.”

“Right,” Judge answers back, “You already saw the extraction point earlier, right? Lead on, I’ll follow.”

“Got it,” Kore says, moving into a full sprint down the narrow metal corridor, energy gathered in Saryn’s palms to cast spores on the next thing she sees, “It’s not far.”

It’s only down this corridor and to the left. No Corpus or any of their machines in sight, aside from the corpses and broken parts of the ones she destroyed earlier, a few of the machines are even still faintly emitting sparks.

None of the corpses are still bleeding anymore, though. Not between the frost of Jupiter’s atmosphere and the numerous slash wounds she’d covered them with. It was, maybe, a little much, in hindsight. But she was irritated and they were very loud with their stupid blasters and their gibbering.

Kore is running on a very tight schedule. No one has time for any of that nonsense.

“Up there,” Kore says, jumping straight up to the top of the ramp towards the wide and open patch of Jupiter’s sky she saw earlier. Kore stops at the top, looking around for their extraction units. “Ordis? Extraction, please.”

“Of course, Operator,” Ordis replies, “Just you?”

“What? No.”

“Oh,” Ordis replies. And there’s a brief silence. “Operator, Cephalon Scylla and Ordis don’t sense Tenno Hades at your location. Were…new plans for extraction made? Some sort of…diversion? Did the two of you  _argue_?”

“What? No!” Kore turns around, “He’s right behind - “

Judge is  _not_  behind her.

“Hades?” Kore calls out, looking around. “Hades?”

“Down here!” She hears Judge call back.

Kore looks down the ramp, searching -

“Ordis, Scylla, what are Hades’ read outs?”

“Normal,” Scylla replies, “All biorhythms and signals are reporting back as normal.”

“Here!”

Kore sees an arm wave, almost completely obscured by a large cargo container  that had crashed down on some railing.

Kore slides back down the ramp and walks over to him.

“Did you find something?”

“Er,” Judge coughs nervously, “Uh. Not exactly.”

“Alright. Then. Can we go?”

“Yeah, sure. I mean. Uh. Yeah, we can go. It’s just.” Judge stops talking. Kore is immediately suspicious.

“Just?”

“I’m kind of stuck?” Judge says voice turning up at the end.

Kore stares at his Inaros.

“What?”

Inaros points down at his foot and Kore sees that Inaros’ foot has slipped into a gap in the railing, and the container.

“What happened?”

“I was…jumping. And then I slipped. And I got stuck,” Judge answers. He futilely tries to tug himself out. “I can’t. I’m stuck.”

Kore stares at him.

“Stab  _down_  and pry yourself out.”

“I might stab my own foot.”

“Do you want  _me_  to do it?”

“No!”

“Then how were you going to get out?”

“Uh.”

“Have you tried transference?”

“ _Uh_.”

“What?”

Inaros gestures around, “Persephone, if I transfer out there’s no room for my  _body_  to appear. I’ll end up with broken rail through my stomach.”

Kore honestly considers leaving Judge here and sending Chic or Punk or someone else to go and get him while she finishes their mission. But.  _But_.

A small little voice doesn’t trust them with Judge, because if Judge doesn’t trust her to cut him out of steel then how could  _she_  trust anyone else to cut Judge out of steel?

“I think…I might have to get knocked out?” Judge says.

Kore is very close to just smashing Saryn’s head against a wall.

“Can you trigger the alarms? Maybe a bursa would be able to knock me loose? Or something?”

“Void. Can  _I_  just kill you?”

“Persephone.”

“ _Fine_.” Kore groans, and goes off to find survivors and bait them into following her or triggering an alarm. There’s got to be someone she’s left alive on all of Jupiter.

Kore doesn’t have to wander far, and the poor fool even looks surprised to see her. They probably thought that she and Judge would have been half-way to Neptune by now.

She lazily fires at the Corpus’ feet - missing wide enough she doesn’t even hit the guy with stray buckshot - and jogs backwards.

“Come on,” Kore murmurs to herself, “Come on. Follow me. Over here.”

The Corpus does chase after her, and Kore grabs her Dethcube out of the air, tucking it under arm before it can fire and she turns, running.

But when Kore look over her shoulder she doesn’t see the Corpus following her. Kore groans and doubles back to find him again.

It takes Kore a while, but eventually she baits  _one Corpus_  close to where Judge is. She even  manages to get the guy to set off the alarms on the way.

The automatic doors hiss open and Kore swears in relief when she sees two more Corpus soldiers and an Osprey drone.

The three are surprised to see her and immediately raise their guns, the Osprey raising up in the air.

“Alright, I found people,” Kore says to Judge, running past him. The Corpus round onto him immediately - a stationary, sitting duck of a target - as Kore goes back to the top and turns to watch.

“Show me Inaros’ meter,” Kore says to Ordis who puts it up in the corner of Kore’s HUD.

Even without shields Judge’s Inaros has over  _one thousand_  damage points and he’s at complete full.

“Stars, Judge,” Kore groans, “You have a  _million_  defense and power in that frame. This is going to take forever.”

The Corpus are literally knocking ten to twelve points off at a time.

“Maybe get some more?” Judge suggests.

“Can I just stab you myself and be done with it?” Kore asks and then yelps as one of the Ospreys - about three more Corpus have joined the fray, and they are going so  _slow_  - blasts her. “Hey! Why are they hitting  _me_? You’re right there! Hit  _him!_  Ugh!”

Kore grits her teeth and forces Saryn’s poison down because if she attacks it might draw more of their fire and she’ll have to start this over again.

Kore keeps her Dethcube pinned under her arm and covers its optic sensor with her hand even as it tries to squirm and get into the fight.

“Are you dead yet?” Kore asks.

“Go find me a bursa!” Judge calls back. He’s not even half-way.

Kore almost wants to bounce her Dethcube right off of him like a lunaro ball. She doesn’t though. Kore stands there and takes the boring indignity of standing there being hit by Osprey blasts while Judge slowly gets the shit beat out of him.

It takes what feels like forever but eventually his Inaros is swallowed up in its signature tomb of sand and Kore hisses at him, “This better work.”

“Give it a minute,” Judge says defensively, “It’s probably going to work. Might have worked better if you found a bursa.”

“ _Hades_.”

“Thank you, Persephone.”

A few seconds later Kore watches as Judge’s Inaros pops out fresh and renewed and  _not stuck_  and Judge rushes past her as Kore rushes down.

“What? Where are -  _Kore let’s not risk it_.”

“Oh no,” Kore snaps, “I’m at least taking these guys out. I had to get hit by that stupid Osprey for the past ten minutes because of you. I’m killing them.”

Kore skids down, and thrusts Saryn’s arms out, releasing a miasma cloud. There’s a small bubble of satisfaction in her chest as she listens to the Corpus gurgle as their lungs liquify and their skin melts to their suits, and the Osprey’s crackle with electricity as their metal melts.

Corpses and broken machine crash to the ground seconds later and Kore turns and sprints back up.

This time she hears the sound of their extraction crafts’ engines coming in and Kore punches Judge’s Inaros in the shoulder (there is another bubble of satisfaction when she sees Inaros’ damage meter immediately go down by three hundred) and jabs a finger at Inaros’ optics.

“The next time that happens I’m going to cut your foot of and drag you to extraction. Let’s go.”


	78. Chapter 78

Judge literally trips over the other tenno while running away from several dozen Grineer - ghouls, sentry, ballistas, you name it, it’s coming after him with a giant target on his back. And while Judge can handle some ghousl, or some ballistas, or some scorpions, or some bombards, he can’t handle  _all of them at once_  and the giant  _Eidolon_  that’s following after  _them_.

So while Judge is running, his Helios beeping frantically as it tries to keep up with him, he thinks he can be forgiven for tripping over a leg in the dark.

Judge skids in the dirt a little, and is almost knocked out of transference with how hard he hit the ground, and there’s a moment of pure panic that he’s maybe tripped over another ghoul when he hears the Empress say, “Well, well, well. Did you lose Persephone again?”

“No,” Judge replies, prying himself out of the dirt. He should feel relieved to run into the Empress out here. And the Alpha, he amends when he turns around and sees the leg that he tripped over was the pointed and delicate hoof of Alpha’s Oberon warframe.

The Empress is sitting on an arrangement of rocks that can only be purposeful, with the Alpha between her Saryn’s legs, and a kavat between his. The Alpha is currently squishing the kavat’s face, its long, large ears flattened back as it purrs underneath the Alpha’s hands.

The Empress, in turn is playing with the leafy branches that arch off of Oberon’s head.

“Sorry to…interrupt?”

“Just talking about you,” the Alpha says, “Trouble?”

“You could say that,” Judge replies and then barely manages to bring his sword up in time to block a bullet.

The kavat lets out a low and angry growl. The Alpha gently puts his hand around its muzzle and it returns to silence.

Judge scrambles to his feet, and Helios whirs expectantly as Judge scans the sky for his pursuers.

“You ought to take are of that,” the Empress says, “There’s a nest of condrocs around here that Alpha’s been taking care of for the past two weeks. We’d much prefer not to have to relocate them at this delicate time in their lives.”

“Uh. Right,” Judge says. “I’ll…get on it?”

“Help,” the Alpha says.

Judge glances at him, and then back towards the direction he was running because he can hear the feet on the ground now.

As terrified as he is of getting beaten up by several dozen Grineer and the Eidolon at once, he’s also equally if not more so terrified of displeasing the Empress and the Alpha.

“No,” the Alpha says, quickly stretching Oberon’s leg out and blocking Judge as he’s about to confront his fate. The Alpha turns around towards the Empress. “Help him.”

The Empress sighs and leans down, bumping Saryn’s face against the top of Oberon’s head, “As you like.”

She swings away from the Alpha, and from behind the rock a Dethcube that Judge didn’t know was there floats up. The Empress stretches Saryn’s arms up and she draws her katana, “Alright, Hades darling, show us what you’ve gotten yourself into. We’ll clean up this little mess and check in with the condroc and send you off on your way to Persephone to take care of. Won’t that be nice?”

It sounds  _lovely_  actually, though Judge has a feeling that maybe he shouldn’t be so relieved to be taken care of like this.

The Alpha pats the ground next to him, and Judge tentatively sits down next to him. A kavat immediately comes up and squirms its way into Inaros’ lap, and starts batting as him for attention.

“It will be taken care of,” The Alpha says, and Judge hears the sound of Saryn casting spores and the first wave of pained screams, “How are you?”

-

“I’m surprised you came, are you going to eat stuff today?” Chic asks as she arranges food on the blanket they’d procured.

“Maybe,” Kore says, watching the Alpha and Punk fishing - the Alpha, predictably, doing much better at it than Punk -, “I don’t know why you’re all so invested in seeing my face.”

“Because you kept it a mystery and now it’s a challenge,” Chic replies. “Where’s your boy?”

Kore gestures vaguely out towards her left where she last heard Judge chasing Ugly.

She doesn’t know why he brought that stupid kavat, but she’s not helping him reign the thing in.

The Empress steps out of her Saryn, sweeping her long black hair over her shoulder as she inspects the spread, “Impressive, Chic. Oh, I’ve heard of that one. That’s the tea that blooms into a flower when heated, yes? Quite nice.”

“Thank you,” Chic replies, “If we could all just collect our partners before something swoops in to ruin this for us? That would be great.”

Kore whistles sharply and Valencia gets up from where she was napping, trotting over to Kore, stumpy tail wagging a little.

“Get Hades,” Kore says. Valencia lets out one deep bark, standing perfectly at attention, before turning about face, ears perked, and rushing into the tall grass like a very small tank.

“I love that dog,” Chic says.

“Very well trained,” The Empress remarks, turning and holding her hand up to her mouth as she calls out, “Alpha!”

The Oberon turns sharply, and then seizes Punk by the Syndanda and jumps back to shore. Punk yelps, scrambles to get his feet under him, and follows the Alpha as he crosses in quick strides to the Empress’ side.

When he gets close enough the Oberon bends down and bumps its flat face against the top of the Empress’ head.

The Empress smiles up at him and pats Oberon’s face.

“Let’s have a nice time, yes?”

The Alpha nods and moves to kneel at the edge of the blanket, sweeping out Oberon’s long and beautiful skirts behind him as he moves. Moments later the tenno emerges from the warframe, blinking gently before folding his hands in his lap and waiting.

Everyone turns as they hear a loud yowling sound that only gets louder the closer it gets.

“That would be Ugly,” Kore says, just as Valencia comes back, dragging Judge’s kavat with her. Judge, himself, follows Valencia a few feet behind.

“Persephone, get your kubrow to let Handsome go.”

Kore clicks her tongue, it comes out a little strange through Saryn’s speakers, but Valencia understands. She drops the kavat, and trots back over to Kore, panting happily. Kore gives Valencia a scratch behind the ears.

“We’re eating,” Kore says to Judge. “Sit down.”

“We?” Punk says, stepping out of his Chroma, reaching across the spread to try and grab an apple, “Are you joining us for once?”

“I’m here,” Kore says, kneeling down, raising her arms as Valencia plops herself down over her lap.

“I mean, as a tenno, not as a warframe,” Punk says. Chic picks it up and hands it to him.

“Don’t push it,” Chic says. “Now let’s just enjoy this day and eat before a ghoul or something comes up and ruins it.”

“She’s cranky because she hasn’t had sun in a while,” Punk says in between bites of apple. Kore watches, somewhat fascinated, as he polishes the thing off in less than ten bites. “She’s a cranky person.”

“A cranky person that funds your dumb choices,” Chic rolls her eyes, pouring tea for the Empress as the Alpha picks a piece of bread apart.

Judge takes a bit of cheese and puts it on some bread. Chic’s about to pour him some tea but Kore holds out her hand and shakes Saryn’s head.

“Water for him,” Kore says.

Judge grins sheepishly, “I have…a sensitive tongue.”

“He’s burned it on luke-warm protein brick,” Kore says. “He talked with a lisp for four days.”


	79. Chapter 79

“It's taken care of,” the Alpha says, and there’s the faint twang of a bow string and then complete silence.

“Nicely done,” the Empress says to him. “I already have my data-set. I will see the rest of you at extraction.”

There’s a sound of something, very close by on her side, letting out a single death-gurgle.

Meanwhile, Kore’s stuck here dragging Judge and Chic while being shot at. Chic’s still stunned from running head-first into a wall of lasers and Kore isn’t going to risk Judge getting stuck somewhere again and having to find something to kill him.

“I can do it,” Judge protests.

Kore ignores him.

“We’ve lost one,” Kore says when she gets to extraction, gently putting Chic’s warframe down at the Alpha’s feet and hauling Judge up next to her, keeping a firm hold on his syndana right at the base of his neck.

“Pity,” the Empress says, turning to scan the skies for their extraction ships.

“ _Empress_ ,” the Alpha says. There’s no real inflection to his voice, and if Kore didn’t know better she’d say his voice had been run through a synthesizer. But it really is just that deadpan monotone.

“Where did you see him last?” The Empress asks, turning around and unholstering her shot-gun.

“When we split up,” Judge answers.

“Right around when alarms went off,” Kore adds on.

Chic groans, “I feel sick. What the hell did I hit?”

“An energy wall,” Kore answers as the Empress strides past them with dignified aplomb.

“Ugh. And Punk?”

“He ran into an alarm. And probably some bursas,” Judge says. “You okay? You were…out for a while.”

“I want to throw up,” Chic says.

The Alpha’s currently using an Ivara warframe, and the Ivara’s hands hover over Chic’s Trinity like he’s trying to figure out how to help her.

“It’s alright, big boy,” Chic’s Trinity pats at Ivara’s leg. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. Maybe worry about the blue boy. Empress went after him?”

“Yes,” the Alpha answers, hands falling to his sides as Chic’s Trinity draws her legs up, putting down her head between her legs.

“He’s so screwed,” Chic says. “Five thousand credits says that he never makes it back to his ship, she’s going to drag him on some training missions for the next seven day cycles.”

“She does that?” Judge asks.

“Yeah. It doesn’t seem to be working so far,” Chic says. “Maybe she likes a challenge. I have no idea. Hey, help me stand, A?”

Ivara bends down, arm held out and Chic’s Trinity uses it as leverage to stand.

“Any of you guys have red flavor on your ships? Could I have some? I don’t know why but for some reason red flavor makes me feel better when I want to throw up. Maybe it’s because it’s so spicy?”

“I have some,” Kore says. “I’ll send a dispatch to your Orbiter.”

Kore can  _feel_  Judge giving her looks or approval. She shakes him by the back of his neck a little.

“Thanks, I’ll send you some credits,” Chic replies.

Alpha’s Ivara draws an arrow and lets loose. There isn’t even a sound when it hits its target.

The three of them turn and see a Corpus nullifier pinned to a wall, the arrow straight through their helmet and maybe their eye socket underneath that.

“Nice,” Chic says.

Alpha steps out of his Ivara and sits down, yawning.

“What drop is this for you?” Chic asks.

Alpha shrugs, and twists around, looking off in the direction of Earth. Kore’s long learned that the Alpha has an uncanny sense of direction, and some sort of compass that always points him back at Earth.

“Cousins?” Judge asks.

The Alpha nods.

“We’re done after this,” Judge says, also stepping out of his warframe and tentatively putting a hand on the Alpha’s shoulder. “And then you can go back to fishing. Chic will go back to sorting out her accounts. Kore will go back to her Void runs.”

“Void runs?” Chic turns to Kore. “Can I go? Relics?”

“Neo’s,” Kore replies. “No Punk.”

“Like I said, after this? We might never see Punk again. Don’t worry about it.”

-

“I think it is quite charming that you named your Charger after me,” the Empress says, scratching Kore’s Helminth charger underneath her mandible, cooing as the creature’s face expands and its proboscis unfurls and happily swirls around, tasting the air.

“I didn’t think I would meet you,” Kore admits, fighting down a blush she knows the Empress can’t see. At least, she doesn’t  _think_  so. Is there some sort of extra sense that allows a person to feel if someone else is blushing?

“Well. It is quite lovely. And she is quite lovely. I bet she has a wonderful battle sense,” the Empress says. “Now. You wanted to train with a bow and arrow in open quarters. Come. I have been watching an encampment of grineer for the past few weeks on and off. They are about ready to eliminate.”

The Empress straightens up and steps back into her warframe, enveloped in dark energy as the Empress’ Saryn reforms around her.

“There are enough of them that it will be an interesting little diversion, but not so many that they’ve caused real trouble for the area,” The Empress elaborates, “I would never let it get so far that it would disrupt Alpha’s things. Have you seen the nest of Kubrow he’s been nurturing recently? Quite sweet looking. I expect them to hatch any day now. I am quite fond of watching wild kubrow hatch. They look quite sweet.”

Empress walks off at a very sedate pace, her Dethcube silently trailing after her. Kore follows just behind, her Dread at the ready as Empress - the Charger - trots along.

“Now, the bow can be very fast, but for now let us get you used to the aiming. Your favored primary is a sniper rifle, yes? I don’t think this will be too hard on you, though the lack of a scope and the overall arc may be a little challenging. Any other experience with a bow?”

“A Cirnos and a Paris Prime,” Kore replies, “I did okay with them. But I think I could do better.”

“A wonderful attitude,” the other warframe nods approvingly. “Well now. We’re coming up on some patrols. Why don’t you try the one farthest from us first? Don’t worry. I’ll make sure they don’t run too far.”


	80. Chapter 80

“Don’t worry, we will burn that bridge when we get to it,” The Empress says, waving a dismissive hand as she strides past them all - ignoring the flickering lights and ominous crackling over the speakers.

“I don’t think that’s how the saying goes,” Punk says, his Chroma turns to Kore like Kore’s going to agree with  _him_  over  _the Empress_.

Well. It isn’t how the old earth saying goes, but Kore personally likes this reiteration of it better.

Kore follows the Empress without a word.

“How else would it go?” the Empress asks, flicking her wrist out and sending spores flying down a hallway.

“Whatever it was before, it is now that,” the Alpha says from behind them, his Ivara’s head lowered and optics focused on Kore and Punk’s kubrow. Their stumpy little tails wag and Alpha slowly reaches out to pet them.

“Not now, buddy,” Punk says, “We’ve got stuff to do. And I guess we’re also being hunted by something? Or. One of us is.”

If it’s the fucking Zanuka again Kore’s going to give Punk to it on purpose.

Ivara's hands lower and there’s no visible changes but Kore can  _feel_  the other tenno’s disappointment.

“Later,” Kore promises him.

Ivara nods and activates  _Prowl_.

Kore turns to Punk and shrugs, holstering her Braton and unsheathing her Dex Dakra, the flames crackling off them casting a warm glow.

“If we keep her waiting there will be trouble,” Kore says.

Punk groans, “But that isn’t the saying.”

“Does it  _matter_?” Kore asks, following the sound of spores in the direction the Empress went ahead. Lights continue to flicker. “Juggernaut?”

“If there is one, one of them has probably already killed it,” Punk points out. “Who’s out for you?”

“New Lokka, Perrin,” Kore says, “Stalker, Zanuka.”

“The Stalker is out for everyone.”

At the same time they both say, mockingly, “ _I am your reckoning_.”

Punk snickers and Kore mutes her side when she laughs, too.

As if on cue, the Empress’ line comes alive and she says - quite matter of factly and almost  _bored_ , like someone talking about the light of the fractured moon or maybe the weather on the plains or a particularly interesting looking bloodstain - “It looks like the Stalker is here for me, darlings. Did any of you need him for something? Practice perhaps? Alpha, love, hold off for a moment. You scare him away too quickly.”

The Alpha lets out one low hum of acknowledgement on his line.

“Well. I kind of want his bow,” Punk says.

“I want his knives,” Kore says after thinking it over for a few seconds.

“Bow,” Alpha says. Kore remembers that. It makes sense. The Alpha is  _very_  handy with a bow. Any weapon, really, but the bow matches his aesthetic best in Kore’s mind.

“Alright. I’ll see what I can do,” the Empress says, “I’ll have this handled in a moment. Why don’t the two of you go on ahead?  _Alpha, dear, you’re going to frighten him away._ It’ll be just a moment. _”_

_-_

Kore’s eyes water as she curls up on her bed, hands fisted and pressing against the scarred and raised ridge of skin round her right eye and cheek.

It  _hurts_. It hurts and it burns and it seems to be  _moving_ even though she knows it isn’t. It’s not growing, it’s not changing, it’s not moving.

It just  _hurts_  and Kore doesn’t know why.

Kore’s teeth are clenched together so tightly her jaw aches but there isn’t anything else she can do. She presses her head down, lips pressed together as she tries to open her eye again.

Her skin and muscles protest with the awful sensation of moving and ripping even though  _she damn well knows it isn’t_.

Kore wonders if  _this_  is a form of Void poisoning. If the Man in the Wall can’t get her through her head, maybe he’s trying to get her through her body.

“Operator?” Ordis asks, “Operator, should - should Ordis call someone?”

Kore can’t speak, so she shakes her head. Barely any movement, but enough for Ordis to pick up on.

She feels something moving behind her, and then the warm, damp snuffle of one of her kubrow’s noses against the back of her neck and a low whine when Kore doesn’t respond.

It’ll be over soon. It normally is. Time doesn’t feel like it should when it hurts, because time is all relative to fixed things. But Kore knows that these spells don’t last long. Unless she’s very unlucky and this is her first prolonged period. But it should be over soon.

So far Kore’s been luck that it hasn’t happened during a drop or when she was with Judge or the Alpha or whoever.

Maybe the Man in the Wall doesn’t want them dead, just suffering. Or maybe it’s something else. Kore leaves it up to Judge to figure that sort of thing out. Kore has other things to deal with that aren’t mental projections from the Void.

Kore starts to feel the pain ease and slowly unclenches her jaw, body relaxing little by little as she slowly rolls over onto her back, letting one hand fall from her face.

Her other hand relaxes from a fist and she just holds it over her eye, gently massaging the ridges with the heel of her hand.

It’s Hajra who came over earlier. The dark gray and black speckled kubrow snuffles at Kore’s arm and hair, whining softly.

Kore reaches up with her free hand and gives the kubrow a gentle pet on the neck.

“I’m okay,” Kore says to Hajra. To Ordis. To herself. “It’s over.”

“Perhaps the Operator should tell someone about this,” Ordis says, “Maybe someone knows the source of this and could hep assist in  _\- eradicating the nuisance -_ solving this problem?”

“It’s fine,” Kore says, closing her eyes, taking a few moments to just breathe. “I can handle it. Ordis, any new alerts while I was occupied?”

“Seven requests from Tenno Punk requesting your presence for Kuva runs.”

“Trash.”

“Done.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing else, but there is an skirmish on Mars between the Corpus and Grineer.”

Kore hums, blinking her right eye slowly. The eyelid tingles a little but the pain is mostly gone.

“Coordinates for Mars, then,” Kore says. “Pull Nidus out. I haven’t used that in a while.”


	81. Chapter 81

"What...happened to your Nidus?” Judge asks as soon as he turns around and sees  _eyes_. Lots of eyes. Unblinking - most likely lidless - slightly bloodshot eyes staring at him.

Kore’s Nidus was somewhat disturbing before - Judge thinks  _all_ Nidus frames are disturbing to some degree. It’s the…undulating. And the parts opening and  _squelching_  and stuff. There is no other warframe that’s so organic as Nidus. It’s all concealed and normal under synthetic skin-armor. For Nidus it’s all just  _there_.

But this?

This is an entirely new level of disturbing.

“I upgraded it,” Kore replies. All the eyes on Nidus’ new body are staring right at him.

Judge is terrified to see what’s going to happen once Kore starts building up mutations during this run. And it’s a survival mission too, so that means Kore’s going to be hitting it hard and she’ll probably have her Nidus frame fully active and running at maximum output within three or so minutes.

He’s scared to find out what… _opens_  on this one. He can see  _through_  parts of the warframe and see  _bones_.

“What about this is an upgrade? It looks like an entirely different  _frame_ ,” Judge says. The only reason he knows it’s her Nidus is because it has a little pink node on the left side of its neck. Her Nidus is the only one with the Helminth virus. She’d inoculated all the others early on for ruining her aesthetic. She kept it on Nidus because she thought she might need a live sample later, and if there was any frame that wouldn’t be effected by the little node it would be the warframe created from the Infested themselves.

“Well what happened to  _your_  Inaros?” Kore challenges, “Or your Mesa?”

“That’s different!” Judge protests, following Kore as they walk past gold and white walls and corridors in search of an alarm to trigger.

“If your cat even  _looks_  at me I’m going to throw it into electrified water,” Kore says.

Judge turns around in time to see Handsome about to try and take a snap at Kore’s syndana.  _It also has an eye, what the fuck_.

“Don’t,” Judge says, knowing Handsome isn’t going to listen, but hopefully she’ll be distracted enough by Void enemies enough that she’ll leave Kore alone for a while. Though she might try to eat Nidus’ maggots.

“Anyway,” Judge says, leaning against a wall as Kore opens a terminal and starts hacking in, “It’s different. My Inaros still kind of has the same theme as before. And my Mesa totally looks the same as her regular variant.”

“Untrue, a regular Mesa doesn’t show optics, your Mesa clearly has optics and they’re magenta. Also she has a pony tail,” Kore says just as alarms begin to blare.

Scylla immediately transmits a counter for life support to Judge’s HUD. Her soft voice says, “Currently operating at one hundred percent life support. Would the operator like an alert at six percent or fifty percent life support?”

“Alert at fifty, Scylla, thank you,” Judge replies, drawing his shot gun and following Kore as they head towards the first life support capsule drop zone. “Mesa  _clearly_  still looks like a Mesa! Your Nidus doesn’t look  _anything_  like a Nidus.”

“I don’t know why you’re complaining, Hades,” Kore says. “This is an obvious improvement. My Nidus  _always_  looked good, but now he looks  _impeccable_. I might end up becoming a Nidus main just to always look this powerful.”

“No, not  _powerful_. Unnerving. Creepy. Disturbing,” Judge says, shuddering as Kore stomps down hard and releases a stream of infested tentacles and spikes writhing out of the ground in front of her. Five or six void poisoned grineer that had been running towards them immediately fall. There’s a somewhat eerie sound from Kore’s Nidus that sounds like  _pleasure_. “I’m going to be sick.”

“Fool,” Kore says, doing a slight turn and stomping down again. “Oh they make it so easy. Hey after this I have to show you my charger. I figured out how to apply the same changes from Nidus to her. She looks  _gorgeous_.”

Judge groans softly, shooting towards the enemies on his side. “When you move you  _squelch_.”

“You are a little baby,” Kore says, “You can kill people without hesitation and leech off of their lives but you can’t handle a little sound effect?”

“It’s not a  _little_  sound effect,” Judge protests. “I can never go on a survival mission with you again.”

“You’re being dramatic. Being with Punk and Chic has changed you. You weren’t like this before, I think.”

“Persephone, you’re scaring me worse than Spooky’s face.”

Kore pauses, Nidus’ sharp heeled foot half-way raised up. Perfectly balanced Nidus’ head cocks and Kore says, “ _Huh_.”

And then stomps down hard just before a grineer scorpion could throw her reel out at them.

“I can appreciate that,” Kore says. “Do you need help?”

Mesa pauses to reload and Judge can hear so many things  _moving_  behind him that he knows are all Kore and her Nidus and the frame’s very special, very unique abilities. Very  _fleshy_  abilities.

“No. I can’t look at you right now. I’m just imagining people parts everywhere and eye balls and I kind of feel my skin crawling away from me.”

“Now  _that_  is gross.”

“Really? That’s where you draw the line? You’ve got  _eyes_  all over you, see through body parts, and a half-way hollow skull and  _that’s where you draw the line_? Skin crawling?”

“You are so dramatic.” Kore’s long-suffering sigh seems very unfair to him. “You’ve got some bombards. Are you sure you don’t want help?”

“I’m absolutely one hundred percent sure,” Judge confirms. “I can’t look at you directly because there’s too many things looking back,  _how did you think that is a good idea_?”

“Well. Technically. They’re just  _my_  eyes.”

“You didn’t grow them!”

“They’re on my warframe, so they’re  _my_  eyes,” Kore says. “And I think they’re a charming touch.”

“Can you go back to the Nidus from before?”

“I could. But I won’t. Because I am currently enjoying myself immensely. Oh,  _nice._ Hades, check it out, look at my larva.”

“No. Absolutely not. No. I’m leaving. I can’t do this. Void, no. _Is that the sound of chewing?_ I’m gone. I’m out. I’m going.”


	82. Chapter 82

“Another one?” Kore asks, staring down at the small, admittedly very charming, kavat sleeping in Judge’s incubator.

Judge has the most amazing luck with his breeding. They always come out with fabulous colors and unique patterns.

Every single one of Kore’s kubrow is brown with spots, except for Valencia who’s brown with  _stripes_.

And Kore’s kavats both have the same tail. This is, of course, ignoring the Death Masks’s entire…everything else.

“Her name is Eos,” Judge says, leaning against his Mod station and looking down at the sleeping kitten fondly. “She’s an Adharza.”

Kore immediately starts looking around for Poppy, “What’s going to happen to Poppy then?”

“Nothing,” Judge says, blinking, “I love Poppy.”

“Good. I do, too,” Kore says. And then grins, eyes settling on Ugly. “Redundancy found, time to get rid of the excess.”

Judge buts an arm up between Kore and his awful, awful Kavat.

“No! I’m not getting rid of any of them! She’s just an extra cat that I’ll have around is all. I might not even take her out on missions.”

Kore rolls her eyes, “Fine. If this were my ship Ugly would be out a trash compactor in seconds.”

Kore hums, “Maybe I should incubate another kavat.”

“No! What if you get rid of Spooky?” Judge gasps, “I love her.”

“I fear and respect her in respect to her station as Ender of All Life,” Kore says. That doesn’t mean she  _wouldn’t_  consign the creature. She’d probably just give the kavat to Alpha or something. Alpha would love her just as much as the death-faced kavat loves Kore.

This is, of course, only if this hypothetical kavat is a Smeeta and better looking than the Destroyer of Dreams. Which shouldn’t be too hard to do.

When it comes down to it, Kore just doesn’t want another fish tailed cat. To start with it’s her least favorite of the many,  _many_  genetic varieties. And she already has Joy.

“Your cold logic is, as always, at odds with your passionate pragmatism. And yet somehow working in harmony,” Judge muses, putting his hand on the Incubator’s clear domed shell.

They both coo as they watch the kitten roll over in her sleep, little ears twitching.

“The only thing that keeps me from stealing her is the fact that I already have this variety and this exact tail,” Kore says.

“I’m surprised you didn’t take Poppy, honestly.”

“I consigned myself to the Blight at the time,” Kore replies. “And I like seeing him terrorizing Ugly.”

-

“I am…very many regrets,” Judge says. Kore watches, baffled, as he starts pulling in sand around his warframe. “Well. I’ll be in here. Call me when it’s done.”

Kore stares at him, the sarcophagus almost completely closed and sealed, before she darts forward and jams her hands in the crack and starts trying to pull it back open.

“Wait. What?  _What? What are you doing?”_

“You know. It’s just so unfortunate that I can’t help in this situation,” Judge says. “Looks like you’ll have to take care of this for us, Persephone. I trust you. It’ll be fine.”

“You’re  _leaving me_? To clean this mess up?” Kore is completely and utterly dumbfounded as her Saryn braces her leg on one side of the sand sarcophagus and tries to pry the thing open further. “Hades. Punk is being shaken around by the Zanuka hunter like a chew toy, Chic is being body slammed by three Bursas, and  _you’re leaving me to take care of this_?”

“You’ll handle it fine,” Judge says, grunting as his Inaros tries to pull the sarcophagus closed. “I trust you.”

“You can’t just hide in a sand tomb every time things go to shit,” Kore snaps, “What the fuck?”

“I beg to differ, I totally can,” Judge protests.

Kore grinds her teeth, and feels the protesting strain on Saryn’s muscles as she focuses on prying this damn thing open.

“Then  _beg_ ,” Kore snarls, getting just enough leverage to snap the entire thing open, sending sand flying. “You get Chic since  _you_  like Bursas so much, I’m going to rip the head off of the Zanuka hunter and use it like a lunaro ball to hit Punk with for being dumb enough to get caught in the first place.”

“ _Persephone_ ,” Judge whines.

“I don’t care,” Kore replies, “You started it, you finish it. You don’t get to hide in your sand just because you don’t want to deal with Alad V’s bullshit.”

“He’s just so  _annoying_.”

“More or less annoying than  _those two_  when they’re snippy?”

“Uh. Point. Alright. I’ll get Chic.”

This is the last time Kore’s going to help Punk and Chic experiment with new warframes. They’re just so… _ugh_. She should have just gone to fuck with Vor like she planned on earlier, or pissing Ruk off for a while.

Kore jumps over to the crates where the Zanuka is throwing Punk around like a kubrow and a stick. For a second Kore thinks he’ll fix the problem himself and get out of it. Kore should know better than to be that optimistic.

“Help!” Punk yells when he notices her watching. “Persephone!”

Kore sighs, sending a wave of toxin and corrosive energy down her blade’s edge, and lunges forward, slicing across one of the Zanuka’s legs and quickly jabbing the joint hard with her sword’s pommel.

The leg buckles and the Zanuka wheels around off balanced to look at her, Punk dangling from its mechanical jaws.

“I can’t believe you were caught twice by the Zanuka,” Kore says. “There are no words.”

“You were caught once!”

“As an unranked Vauban,” Kore snaps back. “And I haven’t been before that or since. Come on. You’re a Titania, just shrink down and fly away.”

“No energy.”

Of course.

Kore dashes forward again, this time releasing a mist of spores that begins to cling and eat away at the Zanuka’s coating. She can hear and smell the metal burning and corroding away. Kore does another series of quick jabs to the legs and skids underneath, dragging her sword along the underbelly.

She wonders what warframe Alad V used to make this one.

“You’re the best,” Punk says, as the Zanuka jumps away from her. Kore pulls out her rifle. “Please don’t hit me.”

“Don’t get hit.”


	83. Chapter 83

Judge’s Baro Ki’Teer noggle is a mimic.

Kore knows this without a single shred of doubt in her body. That thing? Definitely a mimic. Maybe a really faulty and broken down one - maybe even a harmless one. But it’s definitely a mimic. She’s watched it flicker and change colors a few times.

Now. Knowing this. Knowing that this is a mimic and that Judge has been on a zealous hunt for the things on his ship.  _Knowing this_.

Kore does not tell him that.

Because one?

She can  _feel_  the thing get nervous whenever she’s around. She imagines that she can feel it sweating under her gaze.

And also? It’s a fucking Baro Ki’teer noggle. That he bought with money. And ducats. An absolute  _waste_  considering all the other stuff he could be getting. And Kore also finds the man himself very annoying.

He just has this very frustrating way of looking down at you and stuff. Kore finds it incredibly rude considering that she could most likely punt him across a relay like a child’s toy ball.

Kore lounges in Judge’s room, feet propped up on his somachord, watching the little pink Octavia dancing.

She’s had a very entertaining day so far.

Apparently Eos is a little snitch and all of Judge’s other companions are sick of it. Thus far Kore’s watched Eos dart off - or at least, seen flashes of the bright pink kavat - meowing at the top of her tiny little lungs after Judge when she’s seen (based on Judge’s reactions) Cadmus getting into the Helminth room to antagonize the hive-mind creature, Poppy falling into the pit behind in the Transference Chamber, Ugly scratching at the fish-tank, and Chainsaw knocking the tea set off of the shelf.

Kore was not around to see the last two, despite them happening in Judge’s quarters because she had gone back to her ship to get her sewing and drag it back over and then a while later she had gone to Judge’s navigation deck to flick through alerts with him.

Chainsaw and Ugly are loathe to be near her - Chainsaw because she’s a nervous little baby and Ugly because she’s a disaster that Kore would happily consign without a regret.

Kore is now back in Judge’s room, feet propped up on his somachord and working on sewing a new pillow because Isha got too excited with the old one in his sleep and that’s why he sleeps at Kore’s feet not up by her head.

She’s not the best hand at sewing but she can at least do this much.

Kore looks up and sees Eos’ pink little head peering at her through the hologram of Octavia, fluffy little ears perked. Kore clicks her tongue and pats her lap.

Kore’s own kavat, Joy, is lying down at Kore’s side, lightly dozing. Every so often her long ears twitch and brush against Kore’s leg.

Eos meows and comes over and around, jumping up onto the long seat and puts her paws on Kore’s lap, looking over at Joy

Kore starts to pet Eos’ little ears and Eos meows very loudly right at Joy.

Joy lets out a low and annoyed  _mrrrr_ , curling up into a tighter ball. Eos reaches over and bats Joy’s ear.

“Play nice,” Kore warns when Joy unfurls, bright yellow eyes narrowed at the kitten disturbing her nap.

Joy’s whiskers twitch and she gracefully climbs down, slinking away in search of somewhere more peaceful. Eos follows right after her.

“I think,” Judge says from the doorway of his room as Kore twists around to watch them leave, “Eos thinks Joy is her mom. Or sister.”

“They do look the same,” Kore replies, turning back to her sewing. “Did you get Chainsaw to come out yet? Or is she still cowering in the Helminth chamber?”

“I don’t now why she’s so nervous about everything,” Judge says, coming around to take Joy’s place next to her, slouching and swinging his legs up next to hers. After a moment of hesitation he tips over and lightly rests his head on her shoulder.

Kore slumps to the side a little so they’re leaning on each other, his short hair tickling her cheek. Judge relaxes immediately with a quiet sigh.

“Really. She’s big and strong and fast but she gets so anxious that she’ll only look at something in an empty room and then get scared of her own reflection and bolt. Did I do something wrong when I drained that cyst?”

“Maybe you should make  _her_  a sister or something,” Kore says.

“You just like seeing them when they’re small and wiggly.”

“A bonus.”

-

“How are you so good at this? I don’t remember any of this from our Tenno training,” Punk says, panting as he slumps down on, dragging himself towards the water.

“To be fair,” Chic says as Kore helps her tape her hands, “We don’t remember much from that time anyway.”

The Empress hums, stretching before sweeping her hair up and twisting it. The Alpha hands her a sharp, long needle-like implement that she slides through her black hair and pinning it up.

“Don’t think on it,” the Empress says, “You wouldn’t know this anyway. This isn’t Tenno fighting. I learned this from watching my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“A Dax.”

Everyone stops and stares at her, except for the Alpha who’s gone back to the water to resume fishing.

The Empress ives them all a fond look, “She was not a very good Dax. Too rebellious. They sent her onto the Zariman with the hope that she would get dumped on the colony and never come back again. Or possibly die. Unfortunately, they did not count on me sneaking on to be with her. She was very cross about it at first but I got her to come around.”

“Your sister was a  _Dax_?” Punk repeats.

Chic gives her a very knowing and pointed look through her lashes before looking back down at her hands as Kore finishes taping them. Chic nods in thanks and turns around back to Judge to resume their sparring practice.

Kore sits down, stretching out Valkyr’s arms in front of her and watching as Judge and Chic resume their sparring match as the Empress washes on.

“Yes. And?”

“Nothing, I guess.” Punk flops down on the ground. “Hard core I guess.”


	84. Chapter 84

“What’s going on with them?” Judge asks, gesturing to the Nidus and Titania pair that’s been twirling around in circles.

“They wanted to surprise each other,” Chic says, yawning and stretching her arms up over her head, eyes squeezed shut. “Ugh. I’ve been in the Void farming relics for what feels like a million years and I came out to this meet-cute.”

“Did you get anything good?” Kore asks. She’s come in her actual body, but Kore’s traded out her scarf for her old hood, which is securely fastened all the way up and blocks her entire face from being seen.

Chic holds her hand out flat and waves it to the side a little, “Meh?”

“What do you mean surprise each other?” Judge asks, grimacing as the Nidus suddenly releases a huge wave of  _growths_  that just reach Chic’s feet. Judge takes seven steps back and climbs up onto rock to be safe.

“Well. Nidus and Saryn go pretty good together,” Chic says. “So the Alpha asked me to get him into the Index so he could win some blueprints. I told him that I could buy the blueprints for him because he’s a sweetheart and I love him very much and he never asks for anything ever. But you know how he is. He has to  _earn it_ himself _.”_

“And Titania and Oberon are a match,” Kore says, “So the Empress asked me if I could help her find a way to appeal to the Grove directly instead of going through New Loka. Because New Loka hates pretty much all of us.”

“And they other didn’t know?” Judge guesses.

“No,” Chic and Kore say, watching the two tenno in the distance happily continue to twirl each other around in a strangely beautiful display of fleshy protrusions and glittering metal butterfly shaped knives.

The Alpha has Nidus’ arms around Titania’s small waist, lifting her up in the air and against Nidus’ body. Titania’s arms are around Nidus’ neck and their heads are pressed together as Titania’s razorflies swirl around them.

“How long have they been like that?”

Both of the pink Tenno shrug.

“I mean…they must have been out here a while,” Kore says, “The Alpha’s Nidus is fully activated. Must’ve killed some Grineer.”

“I only saw them a few minutes ago,” Chic says. “They could have gone out and did a run then come back to do this some more. I haven’t talked to either of them yet. It feels kind of weird to break into that, right?”

“Right,” Judge wrinkles his nose as he watches the maggots start to inspect their surroundings, mostly just jumping around and writhing in circles due to lack of a hostile target to latch onto. “Yeah. Sure.”

Kore walks towards the flesh covered ground and touches one of the undulating protrusions that’s stuck itself to a rock and is quietly waving and writhing back and forth.

“I think this is mucus,” Kore says, drawing her hand across the protrusion. It writhes violently and blindly in response. “I’ve never actually gone through this from someone else. I’m usually the Nidus making it.”

Something clear, shiny, and incredibly viscous looking sticks to Kore’s black glove as she pulls her hand away.

Chic gags. Judge climbs up higher on his rock and tastes a bit of the protein brick he had earlier come back up.

“Gross,” Kore says, but sounds quite entertained by it. She starts playing with the goo, smacking her hands together and pulling them apart to watch the slime. “ _So_  gross. Hey Hades, come feel this. It’s kind of spongy. It makes me think of mutagen masses. Springy, even. Hollow sort of?”

“No thanks. And you can stop describing it to me,” Judge says, and then holds up his hands in warning, “ _No._ ”

Because he knows without a doubt that she’s giving him that  _look_  through her hood.

Kore holds her goopy hands out towards him and intones, “Goop hands.”

And she charges.

Judge yells and void-dashes off the rock, landing on the ground a few feet away with a slight jolt and continues running, running straight past where he left his Mesa and Kore left her Ember.

“You’re such  _kids_ ,” Chic says, taking Judge’s place on the rock as Kore chases him. “Keep at it, you do you. You need to act like this more often. It’s healthy.”

“Hades, it’s for  _science_ ,” Kore teases, also void dashing - a faint trail of heat and charred ground follows behind her -, and almost catching him. “Come on. You’ve never experimented on Nidus goo before.”

“I don’t want to either!” Judge replies and releases a quick palm-full of energy to try and distract her.

Kore, unfortunately, is too good for that, and  _leaps_  at him, hands first.

Her wet,  _warm_  gloved hand smacks across the bare skin of his cheek and Judge  _shrieks_.

Kore cackles, sounding immensely pleased with herself as Judge tries to wipe it off but only succeeds in spreading it around more.

“Now we match,” Kore says, wiggling her fingers. Shiny mucus slowly undulate and bobs with her fingers as they move.

Judge scowls at her, trying to spit and not really succeeding, “This is so gross. I think I got it in my  _mouth_.”

“How do you feel? Any nausea? Dizziness? Feeling hot? Sweats? Chills?” Kore asks.

“Of course I feel nausea, I just  _swallowed_  part of a Nidus’ infestation,” Judge retorts. “Chic, can you heal me?”

“I could, but this is hilarious. Besides, you’re gonna be fine. Punk once ate part of a Nidus infestation on a dare. I don’t know what he was trying to win, but he was fine after he shat it out.”

Judge feels a deep feeling of dread.

“You only had like, a drop of goo, I don’t think it’s going to effect you the same,” Kore says. smacking her slimy hand to his chest and laughing when Judge shudders. “Tag.”

She immediately darts off in a flash of faint gold and Judge gapes after her.

“I like her more and more every day,” Chic says from her rock, grinning at Judge. “Well. Go get her.”


	85. Chapter 85

Chic gives Judge a very stern look, and she puts her hands on his shoulders and shakes him a little, “Listen. It’s nice of you to ask if I’m okay and if Punk and I need help and stuff. It really is, you’re a good friend, Hades. But listen to me. You need to try focussing more on your life and less on everyone else’s. Have you slept recently?”

“What? Yes,” Judge blinks, baffled. “Where is this coming from?”

The other tenno begins to tick off on her fingers, “You stabbed Ballas. You’re the last tenno who spoke to and saw the Lotus, you’ve got… _Umbra_  I guess, and you’ve got the whole mess of Persephone and Ballas, the one Grineer queen left is still after your head, do I need to keep going here? Hades. Judge. Can I call you Judge? I’ve known your name for a while now but I’ve never used it. It’s too similar to Punk’s and I might slip, but I’m going to use it right now. Listen Judge. Step off it. Turn around and take a good long look at yourself and get your shit together before trying to help anyone else with theirs.”

Chic gives him another shake when Judge attempts to protest.

“Listen. You’ve got to help yourself before you go helping other people. It sounds selfish and weird but it’s the truth. You aren’t helping nobody if you’re sick or hurting or in trouble of your own and you put someone else’s trouble on top of that. So. I’m going to ask you again, and this time you won’t try to lie to me. Or I’m going to call the Alpha over and you don’t want to have him give you this talk. He gave me this talk once and I don’t think I’ve been the same person since in more ways than one.”

Chic stops and gives him a meaningful look. Judge takes this as his cue to nod.

“Alright.” Chic releases his shoulders and steps back, smiling, “How are you today?”

Judge opens his mouth, and slowly thinks about his answer as Chic’s smile somehow turns dark and ominous.

“Tired?” Judge answers. Chic nods and gestures for him to continue. “I haven’t been sleeping so good recently. Uh. I’ve been getting distracted by stuff? And then I wake up thinking about the same stuff in the middle of my sleep cycles.”

She keeps gesturing for him to keep talking, looking encouraging - or what he thinks she thinks is encouraging, to him he’s mostly nervous about this - and Judge starts playing with his gloves.

“Uh. I don’t know what else to say? I’ve been getting a little sloppy and careless because I haven’t been sleeping well. Uh. I’m not sure how to talk to Persephone right now. I mean. It’s fine when we’re out with you guys but when we’re by ourselves I get nervous that I’ll say the wrong thing or start talking about something she isn’t ready for. So. There’s that too.”

“Have you considered telling Persephone about that?”

“That defeats the point of me trying to be accommodating though, doesn’t it?”

“Have you  _met_  Persephone, Judge?” Chic’s eyebrows raise, “That’s one girl you don’t treat with kiddie gloves.”

Judge doesn’t say  _you don’t know her like I do_. He doesn’t say  _you don’t know how she cried_. And he definitely doesn’t say  _but you aren’t the one Kore looks to when she needs help_.

He does say, “It won’t hurt to be gentle.”

Chic’s mouth flattens into a disapproving line, “Sometimes being gentle is how a person falls apart, Judge.”

-

“You know. I’m not really surprised you killed them, but you couldn’t wait for me to use my warframe abilities first?” Judge asks when he comes to tend of the trail of blood and body parts and finds Kore’s Saryn sitting down on a crate and checking down the barrel of her rifle. “Did you drop it?”

“I think my scope is off,” Kore replies. “And no. I couldn’t wait for you because otherwise the target would have gotten away.”

“You did catch the guy, right?”

Saryn nods.

“Are we leaving then?”

Saryn shrugs, “If you want to.”

“Or?” Judge presses.

“ _Or_.” Kore holsters the rifle on her Saryn’s back and puts her hand on the hilt of her nikana, “We could make some Grineer very, very unhappy.”

“Right,” Judge says, not really knowing what he expected. “Does my warframe get to eat any of them this time?”

“Race you,” Kore says, “Your pocket sand versus my spores.”

Judge grins and trusts Kore to know he’s smiling even if she can’t see it. He holds his hand out to her, “The cephalons will do a kill count. Kills from explosives caught by abilities count. Anyone caught between both of us isn’t counted. First person to extraction and with the most kills wins.”

Saryn and Inaros grasp hands.

“Loser buys candy for the winner at Ostron,” Judge suggests.

“Deal,” Kore says. “On three?”

“Deal,” Judge confirms. “Wait. Primaries only?”

“Sure. One?”

“Two?”

“Three!”

They jump apart and start racing down the hallway. Judge would feel sorry for the Grineer if he didn’t think they had it coming to them. And also if the Grineer were anybody to feel sorry for with all the things that they do.

Judge hears Kore activating Saryn’s toxin lash and he feels Inaros’ sand primed and ready for the first thing that moves.

Judge and Kore both stretch their warframe’s arms out at the same time as a wave of sand sprays at the Grineer power-fist who’s back is turned to him, and Kore’s spores begin to bloom on a bombard a few feet to the power-fists’s left.

The Grineer begin to move into action, but by the time more help arrives Kore’s corrosive blade has already cut down one bombard and spread her toxin down the corridor.

But Judge’s sand moves fast and the Grineer turn to dusty ash in front of him as he cuts them down.

Kore laughs, “You aren’t going to win going that slow.”

Judge grins, “Oh yeah? I’m just getting started.”

Inaros leaps and spins, releasing a spiral of sand as Judge activates Inaros’ Sandstorm ability and Kore lets out a fake yell of outrage as he quickly outpaces her.

“Just because I don’t use it a lot doesn’t mean I forgot I have it!” Judge says, just barely seeing Kore’s red and white Saryn running behind him through the sand.

“You haven’t won yet,” Kore says, and he sees the trail of toxin gas that Saryn leaves behind as she bullet jumps to keep up. She springs off of one of Inaros’ Sand Shadows and uses the wind of Judge’s storm to push herself forward and cast another round of spores ahead, sliding to the ground with a spin and cutting their legs open before they can re-focus their attention on her.

The miasma cloud that follows is predictably lethal and Judge can hear the resounding bloom and burst of spores echo through the metal walls of the Grineer ship.

“I want the sweet fruit rinds,” Kore says, “Just so you know. For when I win.”

“And  _I_  want the sweet stars, the pink and purple ones,” Judge replies. “You know. For when  _I_  win.”


	86. Chapter 86

There is value in silence.

It has taken her many years to understand this, to embody it, to utilize this. It does not take her as many years as you would have guessed.

She learned this before she became a Tenno. She embodied it as she learned to become an Operator. And she utilized this as she turned on the people she once part of and chose the Tenno called the Alpha over them.

Silence is too often associated with emptiness. The silence of a hallway is its vacancy. The silence of space is the vast and unoccupied distance between stars and planetary bodies. The silence in a Dax or a Tenno is the silence of an object at rest. The silence in a person is a lack of reaction, a lack of substance.

Untrue.

She, who has now become the Empress, sits in silence and she is not empty.

Did she and the Alpha not pass years in silence? Did they spend years as Oberon and Saryn on this planet that they have claimed as home in communion with each other without a single word spoken?

Warframes have no mouths to speak with. But there are other things for conversing.

The Empress sits on the snowy slopes of Jupiter, snow and wind lightly moving her hair as she watches the Corpus move below her.

Her breath lightly fogs in front of her - she can feel it against her lips, but not hear it - and she tastes the moisture of it before the wind blows it away again.

Her dragon nikana is long and familiar in her lap as she slowly places her hands on the scabbard and hilt.

She does not move.

She sits. She watches. She waits.

Soon, but not yet. The time will come and she will know it. The time has never failed to come.

She is the Empress. She is, as always, herself and herself only.

There were numbers assigned to her. She does not remember them. The call sign of  _the Empress_  was given to her. She does not remember who gave it to her or when. It does not matter. She happens to like it, and she permits it to continue.

She desires an opening. And so one will come. Because she has already begun to carve it out for herself.

The Empress was not on that ship because she wanted to be, or because she was supposed to be. The Dax she remembers was her sister was not someone she was close to. The Empress liked her well enough, respected her and her talents, but she was not close to her. If there was closeness, it came later.

If there was closeness, it came as the Dax died for her.

She had a brother she loved. She respected him. She adored him. And the night before the Zariman was to make its jump he took her to their sister and told the Dax to take her on that ship.

There was an argument.

To leave was to never see the golden halls of the Orokin again.

To stay was to die.

She loved her brother. And so did the Dax.

The time had come to leave. The time had come to escape.

The Empress sits on the slopes of Jupiter and watches and waits.

Her sister - the Dax - once told her,  _fortune favors the bold_. And then,  _the bold need no fortune_. And then she died.

Her brother - the Sectarius - once told her,  _it is the snake that devours the snake that becomes the dragon_. And then,  _in death, sacrifice._  And then he died.

She stands, one fluid motion she remembers from her Dax sister and watches down below as the Corpus begin to frenzy. Like ants. Like insects. Like pests that pick over the decaying corpse of something long dead and gone, something past their understanding, something beyond their concept of glory.

She does not know who she finds more distasteful. The Corpus or the Grineer. Vestigial remnants of something once great and terrible, now pathetic and miserable.

The Empress is a product of fortune, and as such she does not need it. She creates it.

She takes one step forward and feels the wind push her hair back as she plunges off the slope. Then her warframe envelops her and she skids down the snow and ice and stone as she sees the signature of the Alpha’s power radiating out and culling Corpus, herding and gathering them for her slaughter.

Saryn raises a hand, toxin gathered and ready and she casts out.

Silence. No screams.

The Alpha waits, his warframe standing next to a crushed bursa. He stands, solid and sure against the wind like it isn’t even there, and his energy slowly pulses out from him in waves that silence everything around them. Slowing, solidifying, and stupefying.

He watches and is silent.

When she is done she steps out of Saryn once more and goes to join him. She stands so close that she can count the faint freckles on his cheeks. She reaches up and touches them. He didn’t have these before. It must be all that Cetus sun.

Snow has gathered on his eyelashes. When he blinks, so slowly, she watches a few small white specks shift and fall.

She moves her hand to brush them off his eyes and he holds still for her to do it. His hands rest on her waist as she brushes snow off of him - some of it caught in his diadem, his hair, too - and when she’s done he opens his eyes again and steps back, Oberon again. She steps back, too; now Saryn.

There is no need to rush. Silence is a slow creature. The walk together, warframe’s hands linked, to extraction and he walks her to her ship’s extraction unit and waits for her warframe to be locked in before going to his own.

There is so much in silence.

It is an imagined feeling, but Saryn’s hand tingles with warmth that does not fade. Like the warm sun of Earth in her palm.

They are going home.


	87. Chapter 87

Judge gets a hail frequency from Punk about thirty minutes into painting Kore’s toenails a bright green to match her Nidus. He’s secretly relieved by it because Kore’s amount of investment in matching Nidus is worrisome for his future rendezvous with Kore on missions. Kore only goes in for matching nails and accessories when she’s serious about her warframe.

She’s already changed her Djinn’s colors and she’s been been messing around with her Helminth’s genetics to create new skin patterns.

Kore’s also had Ordis redo her favorite guns and swords.

Judge is  _very concerned_  that his future will be Nidus and his…pulsating, writhing body parts that  _chew on things_.

(But he knows that he’d still be happy to see her. He’d still want to be around her and be very, very happy and relieved that she’s around. Nidus’ maggots and larva could be chewing on  _him_  and he’d just be glad that she’s there.

He loves her.

He loves her.

 _He loves her._ )

“Hey, you and Persephone busy with something?” Punk asks as soon as Scylla patches him through.

Kore glances up from the video screen Scylla’s projected for her and raises a single pink eyebrow. Judge shrugs and carefully applies polish to her left pinky toe. Judge isn’t sure where she got this nail polish - maybe through that same Tenno underground network that gets them clothes that aren’t their transference suits and other daily necessities - but the bottle is very small and he’s nervous to waste it.

According to Kore, he’s got the steadier hands between the two of them. Judge would disagree seeing as Kore’s preferred weapon is a sniper rifle with a maximum of two bullets that she uses with generous aplomb to head-shot dozens of Corpus without drawing any attention.

“No, why?” Judge replies. Judge was actually working on trying to figure out a schematic on one of the moa’s he’d stolen from a Corpus facility, but he must have been getting too into it because Kore punched him between the shoulders and dragged him back to his room to do her nails.

There was also a nap in between and Judge’s eyes feel much, much better and for some reason he’s also thinking a lot clearer too. He swears he couldn’t have been at it for too long, he’d have fallen asleep at the table if he was. If he was still awake he must have been going at it for under six hours. Seven. Eight?

“I’ve been trailing to hail Persephone but I wasn’t getting anything so I thought maybe ya’ll were in a drop,” Punk replies. “I guess she went to do something without you? Anyway. I’ve got me a situation and I could use a hand. A pair of them, actually.”

Judge groans, remembering his first encounter with Chic all those months - years? - ago, “Will anyone ever let that go?”

“A pair of hands, it was hilarious and awkward,” Punk says. “Meet me up around Kepler? My Orbiter is around there, just have your extraction unit dock at mine.”

“Alright, see you,” Judge says and cuts the line, looking up at Kore who’s gone back to watching her video stream. “Punk needs help.”

“Who?”

Judge rolls his eyes. Kore’s latest tactic in trying very hard not to make friends it to pretend she doesn’t know their names. There was something going on about four or five night cycles ago

in which Punk accidentally punched her in the head and sent her falling off a waterfall. She’s understandably very annoyed by it and she hasn’t acknowledged Punk’s existence in her life since.

“You shouldn’t talk to strangers,” Kore continues, inspecting her toes and carefully swinging her feet off of his lap and onto the long cushioned seat she’s made herself comfortable on. Her stream display swings with her because Scylla is very good to her. Kore waves her hand. “Don’t get held hostage by the complete stranger.”

“Right,” Judge says, “You sure you don’t to come?”

“I don’t talk to strangers,” Kore says firmly, eyes fixed to the screen in front of her. “Bye.”

Maybe there was something to Kore’s words after all because Punk’s problem takes up almost six hours to fix and by the time they’re done Judge wants to wring the taller Tenno’s neck while grinding out his name between his teeth.

“ _Jude_ ,” Judge says as carefully and politely as he can, “Are we  _done_?”

Punk claps Judge on the shoulder, beaming, “Yeah! Looking good, buddy. Thanks for that!”

Punk’s cephalon chimes suddenly and Punk’s head swings around towards his navigation console, “Just in time. Kuva flood! Hey, you want to come grab some kuva with me?”

Judge wants to go back to his ship, put his head down next to Kore’s hand or hip or foot or whatever is closest and with enough room and complain loudly and at length about Punk and then maybe go to sleep for a bit.

“No thank you,” Judge says.

Punk shrugs, “Suit yourself. Maybe your girl’s done with whatever it was she was doing. I’ll ask her if she wants to come.”

Judge almost tells Punk that Kore’s ignore him, but Punk’s already sending a message to her -

“Hey, Persephone, picking up kuva signatures around Ceres, you in?”

Judge blinks himself awake and stares at the side of Punk’s head when Kore responds - through her scrambler, of course -

“Meet you at Nuovo, bring Ember,” Kore’s scrambled voice responds immediately, succinctly, and even  _pleasantly_ before the line cuts.

Judge gapes as Punk turns around, grinning, “Alright, cool. Kuva time. You sure you don’t want to come? I mean. I know you don’t drink the stuff, but it’s fun getting it. Persephone and I have a total blast. It’s like a riot. I mean. Technically, yeah, it’s kind of a riot and a lot of things  _do_  explode - she’s really good at hitting explosives, did you know that? Does she have some kind of sense for where those are or something?”

“I’m…going back to my ship,” Judge says more to himself than anything. Maybe this is all a strange dream. “Have fun. I guess.”


	88. Chapter 88

Judge needs to pee. He needs to pee and he needs to crack his neck and he feels a desperate need to stretch from his hunched over position.

Funny how he could be slouched over blueprints and screens like this for literal hours on his own and never notice, but he’s only been like this for maybe thirty minutes and his body is begging him to move.

But he  _can’t_.

Kore mumbles softly in her sleep, and he can feel her shift a little as her cheek nuzzles against his shoulders, well and truly deeply asleep. If Judge moves he’ll wake her up. He  _cannot_  wake her up.

This might never happen to him again and if he betrays her trust by moving  _now_  she might never give him another chance again. Judge may be over thinking this entirely but for him this is a moment of utmost importance.

They’ve slept side by side and on the decks of their orbiters and even back to back, huddled together in their rooms. But this is an entirely different beast and Judge is going to savor this moment of trust and quiet and peace.

Kore is like a little, gentle sun radiating heat against his back. Judge normally keeps his ship running cool - Kore complains frigid, at times - but it helps his electronics keep cool and it keeps him awake. Judge’s body wants to relax and his eyes want to droop as Kore’s warmth spreads over his back and shoulders through his suit.

Scylla gently chimes, “Operator, a message from Tenno Chic.”

“Can you take a message?” Judge whispers, tensing when he feels Kore shift at his back. It feels like she’s about to slide off, but Kore somehow corrects herself.

Scylla goes quiet and Judge assumes that she’s talking with Chic.

Scylla nervously starts to stutter and glitch - quietly, though - and Judge waits for her to sort herself out.

“Apologies, Operator,” Scylla manages to get out, “Tenno Chic is insistent on a personal message to you. She says it is an emergency.”

“Alright, but keep her volume low, okay?” Judge says, “It’s okay, Scylla. Thank you.”

Chic’s face - scrunched up and irritated - appears in a holo-screen in front of Judge’s face a moment later.

“We’ve lost Punk,” Chic says, “Haven’t heard from him in about a week and the last person who saw him was the Alpha. I think the idiot’s been captured by Grineer.”

“What?”

“He dragged Alpha off of Earth for a kuva run and Alpha being Alpha made his way through the entire thing and didn’t realize Punk got fucking trashed  _because the dumbass ran off and left Alpha alone_  so of  _course_  Alpha couldn’t tell if Punk was in trouble or not.” Chic pauses and lets out a tired sigh. “I’m not even mad at Alpha, it’s not even his fault. The poor guy sounds so upset about it. Punk’s the dumb fuck who ran off and dropped out of Alpha’s radar. Anyway, Punk was last seen around Sedna and I have a bad feeling he’s about to be dropped in the middle of a de Thaym match without backup and probably shitty equipment. The Empress and I are going to try and find him, you in?”

“Uh. Right now?” Judge asks.

“Yes, Hades. Right now. He has a scheduled lunaro match  _tonight_  and I’ve been putting money on this match for the past two months. I’m not losing out because he’s a no show. Is your girl with you? Can you ask her to come?”

“Uh. She’s here,” Judge says, “But she’s. Uh. She’s asleep, is the thing.”

Chic’s face is inscrutable for a moment before she grins wide and mischievous, “So you’re busy?”

“A little,” Judge admits.

“Forget I asked, don’t worry about it,” Chic winks, “I think the Empress and I can bail Punk out just fine. You spend some time with your girl. Tell her I called and that we need to meet up soon when she wakes up.”

-

Kore’s leaning heavily on her Djinn, eyes drooping, “Ok. So what’s next?”

Judge yawns, rubbing the heel of his palm against his eyes as he flicks through the list of things he needs to assemble some new gear. “Alright. Uh. I still need argon. We need to go back to the Void.”

Kore groans softly, eyes squeezing closed as she scrubs her hands over her face and through her hair.

“Judge, we’ve spent literal days in the Void and all we have for it is a mountain of modules,” Kore gestures towards a corner of his Orbiter that’s been filled with a pile of control modules that Judge doesn’t need. He offered them to Kore but then he remembered that Kore has dozens upon dozens of control modules herself.

He’ll pass them off to Chic later, but right now he needs  _argon_  and he needs  _a lot of it_.

Forma, new drones to replace some of his old ones, new focus lenses, exilus adapters, specters - he also wanted to start work on a Hydroid.

He needs at least twenty argon crystals. At  _least_.

This is the last time that he puts off building supplies. He’s never letting himself run so damn low again.

“This is worse than my alloy run on Ceres,” Kore groans. Her Djinn makes a low burbling noise as it works hard to support Kore’s weight. “I can’t believe I’m saying this. But you need to get Punk and Chic.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing you say that.”

Kore drags her hand down her face, looking deeply peeved and defeated.

“I’ll bring my Nekros. Get Chic to bring her Equinox. Get Punk to bring Ember. You go in with your Trinity. We’ll go in and between the two of them I can probably get a good amount of shit with Nekros’ desecration. You use your Trinity to keep our energy up. I’d say Chic goes in with Trinity but her Equinox deals better damage than your Inaros.”

“Are you sure?” Judge says, “They’ll be chatty. And enthusiastic.”

“I’ll keep it together, but you better tell me the  _second_  you get enough Argon,” Kore says, “And then I’m  _fucking gone_.”

“Got it,” Judge says. “I’ll call them, you sleep and then switch to your Nekros. Start again in thirty.”


	89. Chapter 89

Judge turns to grab a few of Kore’s unused blue Ayatan stars and freezes. His hand is cast in shadow.

He looks up.

And up.

And he looks into the silent face of a very tall, very muscular - though not at broad as Midas, and not as lanky as Isha, but somewhere in the dangerous middle - black kubrow staring at him. Its breathing is very quiet and it holds very still, legs straight, ears at attention, and body primed for action.

Judge stares at it. It stares back.

“Kore?” Judge whispers. An ear flicks.

“What?” Kore yells from her Helminth chamber, where she’s been trying to wrestle some flesh chunks out for investigation for the past thirty or so minutes. Helminth has been hissing and protesting and calling Kore everything from demon to soulless shade. Kore’s retaliation was to let Joy and Spooky go wild in there, chewing and clawing on all the flesh and living parts they could find.

The kubrow takes a soft step forward, stretching its head out towards Judge, ears flicking back and lip curling back.

Judge’s eyes widen, “Kore!”

“ _What?”_ Kore yells back, and the kubrow moves forward, feet soft and ears back and  _huge_.

Judge quickly steps back but ends up with his back to her orbiter wall as the dog looms over him, so close he can feel the heat of the kubrow’s silent exhaling.

Just as Judge is considering using his void dash to escape the kubrow’s head pushes forward and thumps against the center of his chest, large head pushing and rubbing against his chest and pushing the air out of his lungs with the force.

With its head bowed like this Judge can see the dog’s tail wagging furiously.

“Uh,” Judge tentatively raises his hands and sinks his fingers into its fur and starts scratching. “Good…kubrow?”

“Oh, you’ve met Alpha,” Kore says, voice sounding much closer.

“What? Yeah? Wait. What?” Judge blinks, confused.

“My new kubrow,” Kore says, “I named him Alpha. Big. Ominous. Gentle. Also likes to appear without any warning and stands perfectly still for hours on end. Alpha.”

“That’s confusing,” Judge says as the black kubrow starts to turn, rubbing his neck against Judge’s chest like he’s a purring cat, arching into Judge’s hands. “Is that your second companion named after one of our fellow tenno? I’m starting to think you’re warming up to people, Kore.”

Kore scowls and Judge notices that she’s holding her arms up and they’re coated in something shimmery and…possibly blood? She’s also got some of it splattered on her face.

“Third,” Kore says. It sounds like she’s admitting something on threat of torture. Impressive, because Judge is pretty sure Kore wouldn’t crack for anything. Least of all him asking nicely.

“Third?”

“I didn’t think I’d ever really  _meet_  the Empress. So it’s not exactly like I named her that way on purpose, she just  _happened_  to remind me of her being all powerful and stuff.,” Kore explains defensively, glancing towards the Helminth Charger that’s calmly lying down on the ramp going up towards Kore’s navigation console, chewing on something trapped in her mandibles.

“Alright. Fair. That’s one,” Judge says. “Who’s the second one?”

Kore jerks her head towards the Helminth room where he can still hear Helminth hissing through open doors, “Joy.”

“What?” Judge doesn’t know anyone named Joy. And Judge knows everyone Kore knows, pretty much. Unless there’s someone in the Red Veil named  _Joy_ , but Kore doesn’t even  _like_  most of the people in the Red Veil that much so she wouldn’t have named her cat after one.

“Chic’s real name is Joy. Obviously this is a coincidence and not on purpose as Joy the cat precedes me knowing Joy the tenno. But it is admittedly very uncanny. Joy is pink. Chic is pink. They have that one smile with the teeth. They enjoy antagonizing things they probably shouldn’t and then having someone else take care of the resulting mess. Usually someone dumb and big. Like Punk. Or Isha. Both of them are… _affectionate_.” Kore wrinkles her nose.

“Huh,” Judge says, focusing his attention back on the huge kubrow. He swears that the dog is purring. “Does Alpha the tenno know about Alpha the kubrow? What kind is he, anyway?”

“Huras,” Kore answers, “And yes.”

“Wait. Huras?” Judge frowns, “You already have… _Did you consign Hala_?”

Kore gives Judge a flat and annoyed look.

“How could you!” Judge exclaims. “She was your first kubrow!  _She was your only kubrow for ages!_ ”

“For fuck's sake, Judge,” Kore rolls her eyes, “I didn’t consign her. She’s playing with Isha and Hajra in the transference chamber. They’ve got a moa leg that they’ve been fighting over for the past week. I expect that thing to be broken by tomorrow and I’ll have to bring them a bursa plate or something.”

“But. You only ever have one of everything,” Judge says. “And the only kubrow breed you’re missing is Chesa.”

“I know,” Kore says. “This is the exception. It is neither pragmatic nor efficient in any sense, and it is everything sentimental.”

Kore grimaces like the word itself leaves a residue on her tongue.

“But,” Kore says, “For this, I permit it. Everyone else? If this happens again? Consignment. Instantly. No questions. No hesitation. Are you done with the questions? Can I go back to harvesting flesh parts from the Helminth chamber? Yes? Good. Keep Alpha entertained. He’s still a puppy so his attention span isn’t very good. Isha and Hala roughhouse too much for him to play with them, though.”

Judge gapes, “You call  _this_  a puppy?”

The kubrow is taller than he is. He might be taller than Midas.

“Yes, Judge, he’s like - a week old. Ignoring that I had him matured early,” Kore rolls her eyes, turning around and heading back towards the Helminth room. “Just pet him and let him nap on your leg or something. I don’t know. I’m busy. Consider it payment for the stars you were going to take.”


	90. Chapter 90

Judge leans against the cooling metal of a Grineer ship that they finished shooting down onto the plains. Kore’s sitting on one of the crushed sections of it, for once in the flesh instead of in her warframe. She’s got her old hood on, zipped all the way up and hiding her face, but she’s here  _physically_  and Judge counts that a step in a direction. Whether it’s a good or bad one he can’t say, he can’t determine these things for her, but it feels like a step in a general direction that isn’t backwards.

Kore’s got one foot propped up on some metal that she molded with her Void energy and she’s leaning back in a huge dent, looking up at the fractured moon and playing with a rock that Isha brought her.

“We should probably go help them,” Judge says, referring to the ongoing battle in the valley near the water that they’ve been watching from the top of the slope.

“Nah,” Kore says, “They’ve got this.”

“It’d be fun,” Judge says, “A real challenge.”

“Don’t feel like it.”

“You’d get to show off how much better you are at stuff.”

“I already know I’m better, I don’t need to show off,” Kore replies, “Besides, the Alpha is down there.”

“Don’t you want to help him?”

“He doesn’t need it,” Kore says, tossing her rock up into the air and blasting it with a small burst of bright gold energy. Not enough to break, just enough to keep it in the air. “Besides. This is Punk’s punishment, not mine. He’s the one who pissed the Empress off, not  _me_. I did  _my_  job.”

Punk had lost an interception point for all of three minutes because he’d been swarmed by seven bursa. Judge doesn’t really think he’s at fault here, but the point remains that the Empress was displeased by having lost an interception point and her response, of course, was to attempt to strengthen her perceived weakest link.

“He’s really good at Lunaro and Rathum,” Judge says, “And Judgement cycles. I mean. He’s a professional sports player. Why do you think he’s so…”

“Mediocre? Sub-par? Average? Passable but only just?”

“Unsteady,” Judge says. It’s the kindest word he can think of, really. “I mean. He’s fine in all of those other things. I don’t see why he’d be bad at actual missions.”

“Because they’re actual missions. Lunaro is a game.”

“Rathum isn’t,” Judge says. “Well. Sort of. Not really.”

“It’s a controlled environment,” Kore says. “ Speaking of control, Midas is about to attack some Sentients. Maybe go check on him.”

Judge turns around, already surrounding himself in the warmth of Inaros as he searches the grass for where he last saw Midas chasing things and starts running after his dog when he sees the tell tale glow of Sentient lights.

“Are you going to help?” Judge asks through their coms.

“Why? You’ve already got it handled,” Kore replies. “Careful. Ghoul nests. If you step on some they’ll - “

Kore pauses like she’s listening to something, and then she lets out a sharp whistle. Judge hears Isha bark in the distance as he starts shooting at Sentients.

“What?”

“Ordis sent me an alert,” Kore replies, “He’s found some Grineer caches. I’m going to loot them. I’ll meet you later.”

-

Kore turns when she hears Punk groaning, and she watches the large Atlas drag himself out of the water. Kore waits for the larger warframe to finish climbing out of the water duct, keeping an ear out for any patrols that might be coming. She’s hidden the bodies of the two guards she found when she got up here pretty well, but one can never be sure.

“I feel like I went twenty rounds with a Juggernaut. Is this age? Is this my age catching up to me?”

“No. It was you being blasted into a turbine catching up to you. You were literally  _blasted_  into a turbine,” Kore replies, “And you got stuck there with some mines. Maybe next time  _don’t_  hang around next to the underwater vent.”

“You could have pointed out that it was there sooner or  _helped_  me out instead of just leaving me to it,” the other tenno whines, standing up, stretching and drawing his gun from its holster. “Alright, where are we going from here?”

“Chic and Hades have already hit Data point Alpha,” Kore says, “Data point Beta should be ahead. We’ll have to double back here and back to where we originally split up with Chic and Hades to hit point Charlie. But we’re closer to Charlie anyway, so we’ll probably reach it at the same time.”

She’s not sure why they split up like this. But they have and if she loses Punk now she’ll probably get alarms and no data. And Kore isn’t going to meet up with Judge at Data point Charlie and tell him  _she didn’t get the data_  he wanted just because of Punk.

“Alright, let’s get this over with, I hate Neptune,” Punk says, “Sharks and mines and all this water. It’s like…really annoying to move in.”

“But you won’t get struck by lightning,” Kore points out. “The sharks are okay.”

“Only you and the Alpha think that. Hades told me about your theory that sharks are just water based dogs. They aren’t. They are completely different and I don’t know why people think I’m the weirdest out of all of us. You thinking that sharks and dogs are related is way weirder than anything I’ve ever done or said or even thought to myself in private,” Punk replies. “Do you have enough ciphers?”

“Yes,” Kore replies, checking her Rubico and double checking the scope for water damage, “You go first, I’ll guide us in. Move on my signal.”

“Done deal,” Punk says, “Do we know what kind of data we’re collecting?”

“Hades said it was a possible lead on a new ghoul experiment being done between Rygor and Hek,” Kore answers, “Possibly some sort of enhancement that would repair some of their DNA and increase their life expectancy. Or maybe some sort of gene repair. I’m not certain on the specifics. You can ask him about it.”


	91. Chapter 91

The doors to the data vault hiss open, and Judge glances back towards his Inaros. The warframe remains still and unperturbed by the opening of the doors. Judge squints and faintly feels-sees Kore’s outline in the Void before she drops back into the world with a faint glimmering gust of gold.

“I’ve got Grineer shooting up my Umbra two floors down,” Kore says, walking up to him, amp folded back along her arm, “I think he’s enjoying himself?”

Kore pauses, tilting her head. Judge can see the faintest glow of gold in her pupils, like embers, as she focuses on her bond with her warframe. “Yeah. He’s having fun. I haven’t found anything interesting, you?”

Judge shakes his head, turning back to the screens in front of him. “Nothing I didn’t already know. Is it a good idea to leave Umbra alone?”

“If Umbra could almost kill  _me_  I don’t see why he’d have any problem fighting some  _tube men_ ,” Kore sneers. “I mean. They’re not even that much of a challenge for me when I’m using a dull blade and a particularly unstable frame. Like Vauban.”

Judge refrains from saying anything about Kore and her Vauban. He’s surprised that she still has the frame, honestly. He thought she would’ve disassembled it as soon as she got back from the Corpus holding cells. But here they are, almost a full year and a half later and she’s still got Vauban in storage. Unused, unwanted, and - in Kore’s arsenal - unnecessary.

That said, Kore also isn’t a quitter, once she starts something she won’t stop so he knows she’ll eventually figure out a way to use Vauban to her own personal sensibilities. Whether that’s any time this century or not is the question.

Kore leans against the edge of the console, arms crossed over her chest as she watches Judge type and scroll through data files, trying to parse out anything new or particularly interesting.

“You can go if you’re bored,” Judge says, “This might take a while.”

“Umbra’s got this,” Kore says, “I’d be more bored having to deal with the Grineer.”

Kore’s shoulder suddenly tense and her head whips around. “Shit. Patrols. Close out and hide.”

He closes out all of the files he was on - noting which ones to return to if he gets the chance - and looks around.

“Where are you going to hide? If you call Umbra you’ll definitely trip alarms, there’s nowhere for you to hide,” Judge hisses.

“Don’t worry about me, get to your sentinel,” Kore hisses.

Judge immediately returns to Inaros, his Shade activating and casting invisibility on him and his warframe.

His vision reorients in time for him to watch the Grineer guards walk past one of the tinted windows towards the door.

“Kore,” Judge hisses through their coms.

Kore looks around before going to a storage locker Judge had opened when he first came in and climbs inside, pulling it shut just as the Grineer patrol enters the vault.

Judge watches them walk past the locker Kore’s hidden herself in. He knows that they can’t hear him, but they might hear her and that makes him hold his breath. Inaros tenses, and it feels like stone grinding together to create faint dust, like grit, as he stares at the Grineer.

One of the Grineer leans against the locker next to Kore’s as he talks to his patrol partner and Judge feels his heart in his throat.

The two continue talking to each other - and Judge is so anxious that he can’t even focus enough to translate what they’re saying. The entire time they’re talking Judge swears he can feel the Nova in him, the energy the anxiety, the building and roiling mass of energy that demands an outlet to move and release and strike shaking him inside out and threatening to blow his cover. Kore’s cover.

He’s almost startled into accidentally firing his gun when one of the Grineer’s radios goes off with a burst of static, gunshots, and yelling. Probably for assistance dealing with Kore’s Umbra, based on the angry  _tenno scum!_  he can hear.

The Grineer respond back to the requests for help - or the cursing - with their own curses, brandishing their weapons.

The guards mutter to each other, standing in front of the central console, looking around one last time, before running towards the exit on the opposite side of the room to join the rest of their people in fighting off Kore’s enthusiastic Umbra.

Judge waits until he can’t hear the sound of their feet on metal and then a few good breaths after that.

He steps out of his Inaros as his Shade releases its cloaking, letting out a tired  _whirring_  noise as it floats downwards to gently rest on his Inaros’ shoulder.

“Good job,” Judge says to it. Shade’s optic camera flashes a few times in response. “Kore?”

Kore kicks the locker open, and she looks incredibly irritated half crammed onto one of the shelves and contorted around to fit in the cylindrical half-doorway.

“I bet they knew I was here and were standing there just to piss me off,” Kore says, clambering out of the locker and stretching. “Take all of their data and put a virus in to make their computers play nothing but old clips of Punk beating them in Rathum.”

“As hilarious as that would be,” Judge says, taking his place in front of the console again, “I’m trying to make it look like I’m not here. So…no on that. Maybe next time.”

Kore lets out a long sigh, “Alright. Fine.”

She twists her torso around, stretching to one side and then the other. “But I want to leave something nasty for them here anyway. Not here in the data vault. Maybe at their reactor core?”

Judge hums, “Good idea. If we sabotage their reactor they probably won’t think to check their data for external influences. You go on ahead and do that, I’ll meet up with you after I finish checking some more of these files and sending them to Scylla for analysis.”

“I’m going to set the place on fire,” Kore says, “Just so you know.”

“Of course you are,” Judge says. “I’m looking forward to it. Hey, Kore?”

“Yes?” Kore asks, pausing as she flicks her amp out and into firing position.

“Save me a few Grineer?”

Kore grins, “Better hurry, then.”

“The fool will rush in,” Judge answers with a smile of his own, “Chasing spring as one does.”


	92. Chapter 92

Kore wakes to the sound of something familiar, something that pulls at something deep in the recesses of her mind. Not like a new memory - and old memory, being made new again, and being made fresh with its unfamiliarity - resurfacing and coming over her like a wave that she needs to brace for. This is not a memory, this is something  _pulling_  at a memory. There is a difference.

Kore wakes, the heat of one of her numerous companions steadily breathing against her back - based on the size and lack of snoring she’s going to guess it’s either Valencia or Alpha - and her Djinn cuddled up against her stomach and chest, its fleshy body warm against the palm of her hand as she absently runs her thumb over one of its ridges.

She looks around, blearily looking for the source of this sound.

And she sees Umbra sitting next to the somachord, hand raised over it.

Umbra’s back is to her as he quietly interfaces with the machine.

She begins to register the actual sound, now.

A woman’s voice. Singing. Not words, just sound. Slow, simple.

She knows what comes next.

A pause.

A chorus.

Her throat and chest close and she croaks out, “Stop.”

The sound is swallowed by the chorus of voices, children’s voices, repeating back the notes.

Memories shake inside of her, a rumbling and a clattering that stirs up the dark and the dirt and the forgotten and the lost and the willingly consigned, obscuring everything else as she quickly untangles herself from Sentinel, kubrow, and blanket. The Orbiter floor is cold beneath her knees and palms as she drags herself out of bed, sheets tangled around her ankles, pinned by her heavy dog - Alpha, based on the color - and she grunts when she’s pulled back by his weight.

“Stop,” Kore repeats, as the voices was over her, high and young and gentle and so very unaware of what they are about to become. The memories rise around her, pulling her down and into them.

Is the Orbiter floor cold, or is it just her hands?

Margulis. Would-be-mother-Margulis. Mother of all Tenno. Mother of every single child on that fucking ship.

Memories.

Margulis and her kindness. Margulis and her empathy. Margulis and her courage. Margulis and the Jade light.

Margulis’ outrage. Her fear. Her disgust.

Margulis and her smiling face even after she was blinded.

Margulis’, “ _It is not your fault,_ ” after they found out that she was condemned.

The songs. The books. The stories. The comfort that never quite reached her, but the sentiment and the effort did.

Kore never believed in the things Margulis told them - that they were gifted, that they were alive for a reason, that they are children and Orokin and should be protected and held precious, that they weren’t monsters or tools or things to be experimented and studied and built upon. Kore didn’t believe it when they were muzzled and kept in chains and prisons.

But Kore believed in Margulis’ intent. And she appreciated it. The kindness. The attempt to make them  _people_  instead of  _things_  again.

Kore appreciated it, even if it was not for her.

“Stop,” Kore repeats as the song begins to crest, to evolve, to complicate and change. Umbra hears her now, or maybe decides to pay attention to her, and turns over his shoulder.

Kore reaches out and gets her fingers around the tail end of his ragged scarf, clenching the black material in her fist.

“Stop,” She repeats.

Umbra flicks his wrist and the song changes to an ambient thing that fades from her attention as she lies on the floor, half tangled in bedsheets, fist clenched around Umbra’s scarf.

Umbra’s hand moves over her, running fingers through her hair. The texture of his hands catches on her hair a little. Kore closes her eyes.

Alpha, awake now, quietly chuffs. She doesn’t hear him move - he really does live up to his namesake - but she feels it when he noses at her side, and then places a paw on her back, gently nudging her.

“I miss her, because I feel sorry for her,” Kore tells Umbra.

Umbra, who has known her mind as she knows his, Umbra who she cannot lie to. Umbra, who is part of her soul and therefore can tolerate no lies.

(Every warframe she has been in, every single body she has piloted, all of them become part of her and she a part of them. Empty slates that bear the faintest ghosts of her hand.)

“She was not my mother,” Kore says as Umbra untangles her from her bedsheet and helps her stand up. “But she wanted to be. For all of us. And I can appreciate that. And hen they took her away for it. They took her away from the ones that did need her, that did rely on her, that did want the connection she offered.”

Kore sits back down on her bed, Djinn immediately slotting itself into place in her lap, like a very fleshy toy, and Alpha lies back down along her side, a quiet and warm bar of heat.

Umbra kneels next to her, silent. She reaches over and puts her hand on his shoulder, and she feels the warmth of transference between them. She imagines a single gold palm print on his shoulder as energy flows from her to him.

There is a sea of empty calmness, and the faintest touch of sympathy.

“What were you looking for?” Kore asks. She knows Umbra wanders her ship. Sometimes he just sits in the transference chamber, or he stands on the observation deck and just looks out into the darkness of space. She hasn’t really come across him actively doing anything, not like today.

She feel-remember-hears the sound of drums. The sound and beat of them familiar. The ceremonial drums for summoning the guardians. The Dax, the Tenno.

She wonders if he misses the familiarity, the formality, of being summoned. The drums, and then the war.

“Ordis,” Kore says, “The drums.”

“Of course, Operator,” Ordis replies, instant and clear, and the soma chord switches once again. Umbra’s chin tilts up, as he refocuses on the device and his posture seems to relax just a little.

Kore lets her hand fall from his shoulder, and he turns to look at her.

“It’s okay,” Kore says, “You don’t need permission to remember the things that hurt you.”

Umbra shakes his head, just a little, after a pause. He holds his hand out and Kore takes it. She feels the wash of a faint and lingering emotion.

Pride.

Kore understands this too.

“You don’t need an excuse or permission for that either,” Kore says. “You can be proud of what you once were.”

Umbra’s fingers curl around her hand and he turns back towards the somachord.

Kore slowly lies down, and goes back to sleep.


	93. Chapter 93

“I was on Punk’s ship,” Judge says, “We had a sleep over. It was…an experience. You should come next time.”

Kore raises one eyebrow very slowly, and pointedly turns her back to him, going back to whatever she’s doing with her newest sword.

“Alpha brought food, it was really good,” Judge says. It’s a poor attempt to appeal to Kore’s narrow interests of  _food_  and  _people who aren’t Punk_. Kore continues to ignore him. “We watched data clips.”

“What kind of data clips?” Kore asks, because she already knows.

“…Sports,” Judge answers.

Kore doesn’t dignify that with a response at all, she just holds her new sword up to her Orbiter’s lighting, turning it this way and that, before handing it to Umbra. Her Umbra takes the sword and does a few experimental swings with it before handing it back to Kore who resumes her tinkering.

“It was fun. We played games,” Judge continues. “And you could play with all of Punk’s dogs. Alpha and Empress and Chic brought some of their dogs, too.”

“I feel sorry for that ship’s Cephalon,” Kore says. “Tell me, did all of those dogs immediately turn into a giant ring of fur pressed against the Alpha’s stick legs?”

“Sort of,” Judge says, trying to peer around Kore to see what she’s doing with the sword. “Some of them were forming a circle around the Empress. So it was like a figure eight, I guess. You’d like his ship. It’s full of…stuff?”

“I barely tolerate your ship enough to step foot onto it,” Kore replies. “And that’s only after Scylla and I have done our damned best to clean out your garbage.”

“It’s not garbage!”

“You didn’t know you had a dead norg rotting behind your foundry,” Kore retorts. “ _I touched it_. It was  _gross_. My hand was stained  _green_. Norgs aren’t even green, Judge. Poor Scylla. It was  _inside_  of her.”

Judge grimaces.

“In my defense, you touch weird things all the time. Like…Alpha’s Nidus infestation.”

“That’s different,” Kore says. “And I didn’t touch it with my  _bare hands_. I dropped  _an earring_  back there, Judge. It landed in that…fermenting  _mess_. I had to have Ordis and Scylla taking turns sterilizing it until I felt safe enough to hold it again.”

Kore pauses what she’s doing and points at her ear, “I had to get  _different earrings_  because otherwise I’d just have the one and it looks weird. That earring is somewhere on my ship right now  _still_  being sterilized because I don’t trust that I won’t lose the ear if I put it on again.”

“You rip apart Infested and take them home with you,” Judge protests, “I’ve seen you play with bits of internal organs. I’ve watched you poke things you’ve cut in half to see how things move inside.”

“Again. All different,” Kore says, “And most of the time I’m bringing parts back for my cat to play with. Anyway, I don’t trust what goes on in that ship. What color was the ceiling?”

“The  _ceiling?”_

 _“_ Yes, what color was the ceiling of his Orbiter?”

“Black?”

“Not on purpose,” is Kore’s instant response.

Judge blinks, looks at Kore’s Umbra, as if the warframe is going to say something. Or even  _side_  with him. A futile move. Kore’s Umbra only has eyes for Kore, and even then that’s somewhat delicate ground to be walking on.

He turns instead to her Diriga, which lets out a high pitched and furious sounding screaming  _screech_  that sounds like what happens if you play a huge data mass at once at high speed through several shitty speakers.

Judge takes this to mean that her Diriga does not particularly care to be included in this conversation.

“What do you mean by that?” Judge asks, turning back to Kore’s back.

“When he isn’t an Atlas he’s a Chroma. I’m willing to bet it’s one of his go-to frames,” Kore says. “And he’s  _Punk_.”

“I need you to lay this out for me as if I were an idiot.”

Kore snorts, “You’re a fool, but you aren’t an idiot. You’re the detective, put it together. I bet the rest of his ship was all white and blue and stuff. Only his ceiling was black. And not all of it.”

Judge frowns, biting his lower lip as he thinks back.

She’s right - it’s not a hard guess. Punk’s favorite color is blue and most of his warframes have some level of white to them. But the black ceiling? Chroma?

“He was also an Ember during the war,” Kore says.

Ember. Chroma. Black ceiling.

“Oh.”

Judge frowns.

“There is no way that he’s burned the ceiling of his Orbiter.”

“Chroma, when left to his own devices, will breath fire because he’s bored,” Kore says, “And Punk already belches out fire and smoke as a regular Tenno.”

He also burps up some sort of Kuva-scented gas if he’s just come off a run.

“I don’t believe it,” Judge says. “I did  _not_  sleep under an ash-coated, burnt ceiling. I was  _not_  breathing that in.”

“Ask Chic, she’ll confirm it,” Kore says, waving her hand at him and handing Umbra the sword again. This time Kore uses transference, disappearing in a wash of gold. Umbra turns to Judge and Kore’s voice comes from within. “And she’ll laugh at you for not realizing.”

“The Empress wouldn’t have stepped foot on a ship if it was like that,” Judge continues to protest, “There’s no  _way_.”

“Alpha would, because he’s polite and  _nice_ ,” Kore says, “And the Empress goes where the Alpha goes, no question.”

“You’re making stuff up to mess with me,” Judge says, “I’m calling Chic.”

“You do that,” Kore says, Umbra’s shoulders shrugging as she moves into a simple narata to test her sword. “I’ll be here. It  _is_  my ship.”

Judge ignores her, stepping out of the room and heading towards Kore’s observation deck as he hails Chic.

“Hey, what’s up?” Chic answers after a few moments.

“Is Punk’s ceiling black on purpose?” Judge asks.

Chic  _laughs_. Judge’s stomach drops.

“Did you just figure that out  _now_?” Chic asks, in between her wheezing as she catches her breath. “No. I think it used to be navy once. Which isn’t that far off, but it’s charred to fuck now. Don’t worry, the air filtration is pretty good. His Cephalon is good at keeping that part maintained. It’s just the stains don’t come off. He keeps adding new scorch marks and he just told his Cephalon to leave them rather than waste time on it.”

“ _Disgusting_ ,” Judge recoils, “I can’t. I’m.  _Gross._  Why would -  _that’s terrible_.”

“That’s Punk.”


	94. Chapter 94

(I have nothing to say.)

He has always felt an unnerving sense of constraint in the gold and white halls - long abandoned, long left to the wilderness of space and time - of the Orokin. They are hollow. Empty. They are uncomfortably vast in their sprawling that defies the physical laws that should define their boundaries and their limits and their very selves. Even when these halls were full of people, servants and soldiers and honored guests and speakers and archivists and others of great renown. Even then.

Even then it has crawled up the shoulders of his soul and dragged its nails down until everything shakes free.

The halls are empty except for those taken over by the neural sentries, and something about  _them_  feels hollow, too. Like just being here, being assimilated like this, has made them…

False.

As though being here has undone the truth of their very selves, and made them strange walking fictions that bleed when he cuts them, that yell out in outrage when they see him, that scream as they die.

But still…far away and fictitious.

It leaves a strange and hollow  _thud_  in his chest, that makes him uncomfortable and raw on the outside.

But for her it is different, so he lets her take a moment to look around. It is not her home, whatever golden palace she once came from is probably long ravaged by some other Tenno, or perhaps drifting destroyed and in pieces. But it is close enough that whenever they come here that she holds her hands out open just a little, head back, and for a brief, brief moment. Relaxed.

Relaxed like they are when they’re on Earth together. When he sits with her head on his lap as he runs his hands through her long, long space-black hair, fingers brushing the golden horns of her diadem. Relaxed like the way they are as they stare at the distant stars in the canopy of Earth’s forest, leaning against a thick tree trunk, her head resting on his chest, their limbs like vines and roots knotted and woven. Relaxed like the way they are when they are running through golden fields of tall grass in afternoon sun and the sound of Grineer engines angrily rumbles above them - her laughter in his ear as he mentally counts down to their archwing support landing - and the baying of hounds at their heels.

He turns away from her, leaving her to her moment of peaceful memories, to check on the others.

Punk and Persephone are arguing about something - more like Punk is talking at Persephone and she’s ignoring him. Hades is taking in his surroundings, ready to begin. Chic is petting Punk’s kubrow.

“ - Alpha agrees with me, right?”

The words start to rise in him, and his lips almost part to say,  _yes_  - to whatever it is, he wasn’t paying attention -, but at the last moment another voice in his mind hisses for silence, for absolute submission, for complete and total obedience.

And his throat closes.

His lips remain shut.

And the moment for him to respond is lost as Punk continues talking at Persephone, who irritatedly flicks her sword out of its sheathe and pointedly walks away.

Alpha turns to Empress, and he wants to take his hand. To open his own hand out like hers is, and reach forward and take hers and  _tell her_  -

(I say nothing.)

His hand opens and closes around his bow and his fingers take an arrow as he draws back and fires at a single corrupted lancer. The arrow is silent, the body is silent, the death is unnoticed underneath the sounds of the other Tenno’s banter and their many Kubrow and Kavat and Sentinels and the Empress’ powerful force of self.

He lowers his arm and steps back, letting himself fade from view. He runs his finger over Momo’s ear. She flicks her ear back and with a silent chuff she makes them both fade from sight and sense entirely.

Momo’s steps are silent as she trails after him as he goes to check where the corrupted lancer was coming from.

The other four are still going back and forth in the background. Empress, herself, has drifted towards them, letting herself be drawn into conversation.

He pulls one of the daggers from his waist and quickly dispatches a corrupted gunner, who’s back is turned to him.

His knife goes straight down into the throat, and his other arm pins the body to his, holding very still as he waits for the struggling to stop before lowering the body to the ground. Momo glances down at it before looking back up at him.

He shrugs and they both turn around to follow the rest of their group as they enter deeper into the golden halls of what was once living.

Perhaps it is still living. But it no longer feels alive.

He keeps his bow ready in his hands as he follows behind.

Persephone’s Nidus builds its mutations quickly, and is soon covered in graceful curves of armor. Judge’s Inaros moves with a trail of sand and devastation.

Chic’s Equinox charges between them, as Punk’s Chroma breathes out streams of flame.

And around all of them are spores releases clouds of toxic mist.

Alpha’s arrows find the ones that run. They find the ones that almost make their way in.

He finds them. He always does.

Alpha is a stone, he is the ground that is walked upon, he is a mountain in the distance. He waits, ever patient, for his opportunity. It comes. It always does. It is made and it is taken. Alpha waits, invisible and mostly unnoticed, walking through and around the gaps made by the other Tenno as he dispatches the corrupted enemies that are also missed and unnoticed.

His voice tangles in his throat as the others talk through their shared communication frequency. And every time he untangles it, it’s too late for him to speak.

It’s alright, Empress’ voice says in his head, through memory and golden sunlight and lavender moonshine.  _It’s alright, if the moment passes, the moment always comes again. Save it for the next._

He tucks the words into the back of his teeth and waits as he follows. Now, a few minutes later, hours, nights, weeks, months later. She’s right. The moment will come again.

Just like they return to these golden halls centuries and empires later, the time for the words will come again.

He draws his bow and sends an arrow arcing gracefully over Persephone’s Nidus and the stream of Punk’s fire.

It lands in the throat of a bombard that Chic strikes a mere breath later.

He feels a brush against his back and turns to see Empress - Tenno, not frame - smiling up at him, golden diadem gleaming, sword in hand, before she vanishes in a burst of energy that leaves a trail of crackling, burning electricity.

The words warm in his chest, illuminating the hollow spaces, and he turns away, satisfied.

(I have said it all.)


	95. Chapter 95

Judge has half a mind to kick Punk right behind the knees to get him to shut up. Punk and Chic have been trying to get Kore to take off her suit’s hood for the past hour. Punk’s been using his Ember to increase the heat in the area as they hunt ghouls and Chic’s been doing nothing about it, he has a feeling she’s got money on some sort of outcome.

Kore, herself, he knows, is more than capable of stopping this if it really bothered her. And Kore is nothing if not stubborn and relentless in her studious adherence to her own personal standards. Judge is incredibly  _fucking lucky_  to be considered someone she’s willing to let in.

Judge isn’t going to step into this unless Kore wants him to, and she’ll let him know when she wants that. Otherwise he’s staying out of it because Judge likes to think he isn’t as much of a fool as he used to be, and only a fool would get between Kore and whatever plans she has for any unfortunate victim that crosses her path.

So Judge turns around and goes back to trying to get Midas to stop actively digging up more Grineer ghouls.

Judge is about ninety percent sure that Midas thinks that this is a game and that he wins by pulling up ghouls by the necks and bringing as many of them to Judge as possible. The problem is that Midas doesn’t kill them, he just wakes them up and annoys the hell out of them. So by the time that Midas drops them at Judge’s feet they’re mad and more than willing to take it out on the Tenno in front of them.

Ecstatic, even. As ecstatic as a Grineer ghoul could be, he supposes. He’s not so certain of their emotional range aside from  _unconscious_  and  _frenzied rage_.

Surely there’s something in the middle, but he has no idea how he’d go about trying to figure that one out -

“ _Fucking void_ ,” Chic screams, followed by the sound of a loud and wordless scream from Punk.

Judge turns around, heart pounding in his chest, followed by confusion.

Chic’s hands are fisted up in front of her as she rapidly squeezes her fingers open and shut - frustration?

Judge boggles as he watches Punk fall onto his knees, hands in the air as he screams, “ _Why are you like this? Who made you this way?_ ”

“You sadistic  _shit_ ,” Chic snarls.

“What? You’re right. It’s hot. I removed my hood.”

Judge’s eyes snap to Kore, who’s been leisurely following behind them while encouraging Alpha - the dog - to explore on his own. Mostly Alpha seems too nervous of the plains and the grineer popping out of the ground and has stuck against Kore’s side.

Kore’s hood is indeed off.

But she’s wearing Umbra’s scarf underneath - some of the long folds wrapped around her pink hair - and -

Judge squints, moving over to join the rest of them.

She’s wearing one of Nakak’s Excalibur masks.

Judge didn’t know that Kore knew who Nakak was, let alone that she’d be willing to buy something off of her.

Kore makes a show of looking around, idly playing with one weighted end of the black scarf, “Such a beautiful day. The sun in the sky, the breeze on your face. I should do this more often.”

And Judge knows from her tone of voice - with the way she’s laying it on thick people in the outer terminus would hear it - she’s  _fucking with them_.

Judge bites his lip to hide his laugh as Kore flips one scarf end over her shoulder and continues to calmly walk past the two dramatic Tenno wailing on the ground.

He falls into step with her as she passes, “How’d you fit all that underneath the cowl? Isn’t yours pretty skin tight?”

“A quick jump into the void for the switch out,” Kore says.

“And the mask?”

“Alpha, the Tenno, gave it to me. One of his various dogs found it and brought it to him. I think he has about thirty of them and he’s been trying to get rid of them,” Kore says, and then tilts her head meaningfully towards him, “Because unlike  _some_  people he understands that he doesn’t need thirty of something he’ll never use and he should just get rid of it.”

“Hey,” Judge protests, “We ended up needing all those crewman hats after all.”

Kore shrugs her shoulders, walking closer to him to bump against him playfully, “Underneath this thing I can fit another mask and maybe some glasses. I could keep this going for _ever_.”

“You shouldn’t tease them, they’re only like that because you make it so hard,” Judge points out. “If you show them your face once they’ll probably let it go after half an hour and it’ll just be normal.”

“But I tease them like this because they’re trying so hard. They’re the ones egging  _me_  on,” Kore replies. “It’s the anticipation that gets them, really.”

Judge rolls his eyes, “I almost think you like Tyl Rygor with the way you mock him so fondly.”

“Then you’re a fool,” Kore says, watching as Alpha leaves her side to investigate a shallow pool of water, short tail gently bobbing as he snuffles under his breath. Alpha turns towards them, feet tamping at the ground, ears pricked at attention, before turning back down at the water and jumping in place. “I think he likes it.”

Alpha then does something like a sneeze, shaking himself out, and coming back over to Kore and leaning against her as she walks.

“Not as much as he likes you, apparently,” Judge muses. “Is there any Raksa mixed in there? He never leaves you.”

“Maybe,” Kore says, “He’s intimidating enough when he wants to be.”

Kore’s head turns up at the same time Alpha’s ears swivel to Judge’s right.

“What?”

“Where’s Midas?”

Judge grimaces, “Void, he’s probably found another ghoul nest by now.”

He turns to the two tenno in the background, “Guys. Incoming. Are you okay?”

“She has a  _mask under the mask!_ ” Punk howls, “What kind of Sisyphean torture is this?”

“Big words for such a small brain. I’m almost impressed,” Kore mutters under her breath. Judge elbows her. “ _I said - “_

“I meant quieter, not louder,” Judge cuts her off before she can repeat it fully.  

Judge can feel her smirk as she takes one glimmering step forward and is enveloped in the body of her warframe. Judge copies her a moment later, and she laughs through their private channel.

“This is right up there with mocking Tyl Rygor or beating the fuck out of Vay Hek.”

“You shouldn’t torment them like that,” Judge says, “It’s only going to come around to bite  _me_  in the ass.”

“Part of the fun,” Kore replies, “You’re at your best when you’re exasperated. I once watched you hack a Bursa in four keystrokes when you were getting annoyed by Chic and Punk arguing about an anti-Moa unit.”

“They just wouldn’t shut up about the best place to target it!”


	96. Chapter 96

“I can't help it," Judge defends himself feebly as Kore smacks his leg.

“Stand up straight, this is hard enough already,” Kore says from where she’s crouched on the floor next to him. She holds up a length of string with knots interspersed through it at regular intervals. “What the fuck, Judge. Stop  _growing_. I can’t get the measurements out fast enough and  _do you know how hard it is to get new suits made_? Even if you go straight to the Quills it takes time for them to get the materials and  _by the time they’re fucking done with one suit you’ve outgrown it_.”

“I’m sorry! I can’t  _stop_  growing!” Judge says, “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“Are you sure? It feels like you are,” Kore says, muttering numbers to herself under her breath as she wraps her hand around his ankle and tugs.

At this point, he’s familiar enough with the process that he spreads his stance apart just a little so Kore can get his inseam.

“It’s not like I can just go up to a marketplace and find this material,” Kore says, “And someone actually has to put this together. I can’t keep just buying this, people are going to think I’m starting a business. You are literally a full time business with the way you’re growing. The shoes, the suits, the underclothes, the sleepwear,  _all of it_.”

“I’ll pay,” Judge says.

“That’s not a question at this point, it’s a lot of material,” Kore says, scowling, “Can you…slow down the growing? Is there something you can take for that?”

“Poison would mean I stop growing forever,” Judge says, trying to tease a smile out of her.

Kore, instead, looks contemplative.

“No. That’s a joke. I wanted you to laugh. Kore, don’t poison me.”

“But…maybe a  _little_  poison. Or maybe if we put you in stasis for a while it would de-activate whatever hormone is making you grow.”

“Kore, it’s  _puberty_. It just  _happens_. You can’t  _stop_  puberty.”

“That’s a challenge.”

“It really, really isn’t.”

Kore sits back, looking up at him, brushing her hair out of her eyes. Judge is tempted to touch his fingers to the ridges of green-blue around her right eye. He curls his fingers into his palms and puts them behind his back to ward off the temptation.

“We could ask the Alpha if he has some old suits,” Kore says. “I mean. He’s tall. We could recycle some of those to make some stuff for you and have material left over. I don’t think he’d mind. I’m going to call him.”

Something about cutting up and wearing the Alpha’s old clothes make Judge feel weird. It’s like…defacing something holy, maybe.

Alpha picks up after about a minute.

“Yes?”

“Hi,” Judge says.

“Judge is growing too fast,” Kore says, “Do you have any old clothes we could use?”

Given the Alpha’s naturally silent everything, it takes a lot of faith to believe that he hasn’t hung up. Especially when he’s quiet for so long. But Judge has gotten a bit of experience with the other tenno and can sort of tell the difference between the silence of Alpha thinking and the silence of no one being there at all.

He’s got about a forty-sixty success rate so far. It’s not fifty fifty yet, but it’s pretty good compared to when he first met the other Tenno.

“No,” Alpha finally answers. “I looked. She took them.”

“The Empress?”

“Yes,” The Alpha confirms, “Likes to keep them. Sorry. Haven’t had any others in a long time. No growth.”

The Alpha sounds a little disappointed towards the end of that, Judge has no idea why. He’s already so  _tall_. It seems like a hassle to get any taller than that.

“I’ll ask her,” the Alpha says and then there’s a faint ringing in the background as he patches in a new connection.

The Empress picks up in about half a minute, “Yes?”

“Old clothes,” Alpha says, “Judge is hitting puberty. Growing fast. Are there any?”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Empress says, sounding genuinely delighted, “I have some of your old clothes on my ship. I’ll air them out and bring them. They might be a little too big for him, still.”

“They’re on.”

“Hi.”

“Hi, we’re going to cut them and use them for material. It’s okay if they’re too big,” Kore says. “Can I meet you at the Strata relay?”

“Give me about a day,” the Empress says. “I’m on Sedna right now, once I wrap up here I’ll air them out and send you a message. Oh. I’ve got to go now. The bombards make it so hard to hear well. It’s like they don’t have any manners, you don’t just interrupt a conversation.”

The Empress hangs up just as the sound of something exploding gets through the connection.

“I’ll ask Punk,” the Alpha says, “Similar size, less work.”

“Void, no,” Judge and Kore say at the same time.

Alpha’s silence is questioning and confused, also maybe a little hurt.

Judge is getting very good at this.

“He’s…Punk,” Judge says as gently as possible. “I don’t…I mean. His ceiling is black and he’s always got Kuva stains on everything. I’d rather…. _not_.”

“Oh.”

“Thank you, though.”

“Okay.”

“Really, thank you. We’re going to hang up now.”

There’s an almost awkward pause where Judge really can’t tell if Alpha is still there or not before he says, “Bye” and then disconnects.

Kore holds out her hand and Judge takes it, helping her stand. He can feel the heat of her void energy through his sleeve as she squeezes his hand, letting go and stepping away after she steadies herself.

“No more growing,” Kore says. “I’m going to message my clan for more cloth and to see if they’ve got your new boots finished or if there’s time to adjust them. No growing while I’m away.”

“I promise nothing,” Judge replies, grin lopsided as Kore gives him an annoyed look. “I’d give you some of my height if I could.”

“Why?” Kore says, “I don’t want to get tall. Everything in my ship is customized to my exact height right now. That’d be a pain. I mean, you need to throw most of your garbage away anyway, but I’m operating at peak efficiency.”


	97. Chapter 97

Judge finishes circling the Grineer encampment and finds Kore’s Nidus half-mutated and sitting on a large moss covered rock.

Nidus’ feet are firmly planted apart and her sword is driven through the ground, Nidus’ metal coated hands resting over the pommel.

“You didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” Kore confirms. “Unlike some people, I’ve never had a habit of  _rushing in.”_

 _“I’ve gotten better_ ,” Judge says. Nova is slim enough that she can also sit on the rock with Kore’s Nidus. “You have to admit, I’m starting to be more of a tactician than a fool. You don’t have to run after me so much anymore.”

Nidus’ thigh and knee bumps against Nova’s as Kore spreads Nidus’ legs a little more, slouching back, crossing an ankle over Nidus’ thigh.

Kore, in her own body, would never sit in such a way. He’s not sure if it’s being in a big body or if it’s just the mindset she has when she’s a Nidus, but being in her different frames changes Kore’s body language by a lot. Judge’s getting pretty fluent though.

“Once a fool, always a fool,” Kore says, tugging at Judge’s syndana with her free hand. “Find anything?”

“I’ve got patrols,” Judge says, “When the others get here I’ll lay out the schedules. It’s not as bad as we thought, considering how many times we’ve chased Hayk down. I thought he would’ve upped security.”

“Overconfident twat,” Kore says, “Also an annoying and persistent one. I’d rather fight the Ruk.”

“You just like watching Ruk stagger and sputter when you shoot him in the chest.”

“It’s like he thinks it  _isn’t_  a literal glowing target,” Kore says. “He gets all offended on you, like you’ve just done something unspeakable and socially inappropriate.”

“Shooting people in the chest is socially inappropriate.”

“In a fight? No such thing.”

“Right. What did you find?”

Nidus shrugs a shoulder, “Nothing interesting. I’ve sent Empress the Charger in to sniff stuff out. She’ll be back eventually. Maybe she’ll agitate some of the wild Kubrow into attacking the Grineer. Give us a bit of a distraction to get through to Hayk a little faster this time.”

“Good idea,” Judge says and then looks around, “You know. I don’t think I ever really appreciated how nice the Earth’s jungles are at night. Normally we’re at the Plains. I kind of see why Alpha’s normally around here.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t come with us for this one,” Kore says, “Any chance to fuck up someone messing with his home planet is one he’d normally take. Maybe even initiate.”

“Yeah,” Judge slowly opens and closes Nova’s fingers, “I think he and Empress had something to do somewhere else? I asked him about it since I figured he’d probably have more intel than we do, but I couldn’t get a message through. I think he’s off-planet on some sort of mission otherwise he would’ve responded.”

Nidus’ tapered fingers work their way up Nova’s syndana to the base of Nova’s neck, idly poking and prodding at the back of Nova’s head-case where the panels open.

“Quit it,” Judge says, “That tickles.”

“Oh, well since it  _tickles_ ,” Kore says playfully running Nidus’ pointed fingertips over the panelling.

It feels a little like someone’s running something over his scalp. Or dragging a finger down the inside of Judge’s forearm.

Nova lets out a small jolt of sparks and the panels on the back of her head flutter open, releasing an exhaust of energy.

Judge shrugs Kore’s hand off and Kore laughs, sitting up and putting Nidus’ arm around Nova’s shoulder. Judge playfully shoves at Nidus’ chest.

“Nidus’ second set of arms feel really weird,” Judge says as they jostle each other back and forth.

“Like extra jiggly protein brick,” Kore says in understanding. She gives him a light check with her hip and Judge shoulders her back. “In a battle between these two frames and physical strength Nova does not win.”

“Nah,” Judge agrees. “But if I really get you I can run away  _very_  fast.”

“The fool rushes.”

“Away?”

“Out of one fire into another, usually.” Kore lazily slings Nidus’ arm over Nova’s shoulder, “Did you give Punk and Chic an ETA for when they should come back? I want to fuck this guy up so I can go to sleep. Eat some protein brick with green flavor, maybe watch some vid-streams I borrowed from Simaris’ data library, and then go to sleep.”

“Now that sounds like a nice night in,” Judge says. “Could I be invited to this?”

“Bring your own protein brick,” Kore replies instantly. “And bring your new game console. The one you got from Simaris.”

“The one you said was dumb?”

“Yeah, that one. I want to watch you get your butt kicked in a digital simulator.”

“It’s a broken game, it’s impossible to get through,” Judge says. “It’s not  _me_.”

“Right, excuses,” Kore says, and then turns. “Hey, she’s back.”

Just as Kore says this there’s a loud rustling and something large comes flying out of the brush, skidding to a halt right at their feet.

Kore pulls her sword out of the ground and stabs it back down, straight into the gap between the Grineer’s helmet and chest plate, skewering and pinning the now dead Grineer through the throat.

Empress, the Helminth Charger, comes trotting out of the brush, tail swaying back and forth. She lets out one soft bark, mandibles opening and proboscis slithering out to taste the air.

“Good girl,” Kore coos as the Charger comes over, stepping over and on the corpse, to get some affectionate scratches from her master. “Judge, that’s one of the higher ranked guards, check the pockets.”

“On it,” Judge says, standing up off the rock and walking around the corpse. “Did you train your companions to know the rank of Grineer they target?”

“Of course not, they have common sense,” Kore replies. “They recognize the biggest douche on sight.”

Judge chuckles under his breath, “Right. Could you remove the sword so I can flip this guy over?”

Kore pulls her sword up and returns it to its sheathe at her hip, sitting back down on the rock and patting Nidus’ thighs. The Helminth Charger immediately jumps up and sprawls like she’s still a pup and actually capable of fitting on someone’s lap.

“Seriously though, did you tell them what time to come back? I want to go already.”

Judge is about to answer when their squad’s com-line crackles to life and Chic’s voice says, “We’ve got a situation.”

“A Punk situation?” Judge asks.

“No. A  _Sentient swarm_  situation. Get over here, sending coordinates. Chic, out.”

Judge and Kore both exchange glances.

“Well. There goes our protein brick dinner,” Judge sighs, straightening up and reorienting himself in the direction of the coordinates Chic sent.

“I should’ve pretended I was sick,” Kore mutters, nudging Empress off and drawing her sword again. “Alright, lets get it done I guess.”


	98. Chapter 98

“Hey.”

It goes without saying that Kore calmly, studiously, and tenaciously  _ignores_  the other Tenno and continues to proceed with tracking Grineer patrol patterns through her Rubico’s scope. It’s not possible to get a stealth headshot at all of them. But if she times it right she can get them just as they turn and punch through two or three of them and then take out a maybe four more before the rotation turns around and gets on guard.

“Persephone."

Kore reaches over and rests her hand on the back of Empress’ - the Charger - neck and gives the creature a gentle push. Empress silently goes off to watch for incoming Grineer.

“I know you can hear me.”

She can also see him, too. Unfortunately.

Punk is a very blue, very obvious, and very obnoxious thorn in Kore’s side that she just can’t seem to shake. He’s currently sitting next to her, legs dangling off of the metal railing in his Chroma, and fiddling with a codex scanner.

This must be something like what Judge feels with the Man in the Wall, the Void voice. But not exactly because Judge is afraid of the Man in the Wall whereas Kore just wants to push Punk off the ledge and watch him go splat.

He won’t go splat. As fucking  _annoying_  and  _dumbfounding_ as the Tenno is, Kore admits he  _is_  capable in a very unlucky way that it only works when it shouldn’t. He’d survive, or parkour to a ledge, or worse - ruin Kore’s patrol patterns.

Kore’s not sure, exactly, how they got to this moment in time. Judge isn’t here. Chic isn’t here. The Empress isn’t here. The Alpha isn’t here.

It’s just the two of them on this Grineer factory on Ceres.

Kuva wasn’t even involved.

Honestly, Kore’s not sure if she got here and found him or vice versa, but somehow they’re now sharing Kore’s perch.

“Seph. Persephone. Nee. Onee.  _Phonee._  Sepho.”

If she turns her scope on him it’ll be too zoomed in for a good shot. Though, honestly, if she turned her rifle fast enough she’d probably whack him in the face. It would not be satisfying.

“Percy. Hey. I like that one.  _Percy_.”

“If I let you call me that will you do it in your head and stop talking out loud?”

There are worse things to be called than  _Percy_.

(Thing. Monster. Creature. Experiment. Subject.  _Slave_.)

“Hey, Percy. How old are you?”

Kore slowly turns from her rifle.

“You know how old we are.”

“I mean. How do you count it?” Punk asks. “Because Joy - that’s Chic, I think you know that? I’m pretty sure you do. You’re just so  _stoic_  about not using real names. What’s up with that? - Joy and I are having a debate.  _I_  think that you count  _everything_. Joy says you only count the parts that you’re awake for. But then I asked her what she meant by awake and she said awake as a Tenno. So like…the parts where we forget that we’re actually  _people-people_  and not warframes don’t count. So. Like. The warframes that are being used by unawakened Tenno? By Joy’s count those Tenno aren’t aging? So. How do  _you_  count your age?”

“Everything,” Kore says, “It’s how long I have physically been present in this world, regardless of my mental state of mind.”

Again, Kore doesn’t know how she feels about being on the same track of thoughts as Punk, but really she isn’t in the mood for a philosophical debate on the soul and the body and the divide of time and consciousness.

“What does Judge think?”

Kore swings the rifle around.

“He told me his name.”

Kore swings the rifle back towards the Grineer.

“You really like him.”

Kore shrugs, and replies, “Hades is the good that will remain within me and around me even when there is no  _me_  left.”

It is the truth. Nothing more and nothing less.

She knew him before she knew herself. She knew him without knowing there was anything to know. Kore would know Judge no matter the state of her soul - in this body and in the next and in the one after that. Kore would know him a thousand years and a thousand lives and a thousand remembering and forgettings from now.

And she is not ashamed of it.

“Wow,” Punk says. “That was crazy deep, Percy. Do you normally go that deep? I mean. Normally when we talk it’s me talking at you and sometimes talking about food so I don’t normally get this side of you. Is this what you’re normally like?”

“When you ask me questions about Hades, yes,” Kore says. Again. Generally the truth. “Unless he’s being a fool.”

“Based on what he says, you always think he’s being a fool.”

“Just because I think he’s  _being_  a fool doesn’t mean he always  _is_  a fool,” Kore says, “Just like how I think you’re a dullard but you aren’t  _always_  a complete disaster of a person.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I hope you had that on recording, I doubt I’ll ever top that,” Kore says. “Are you going to sit here and talk this entire time or do something?”

“Oh, right,” Punk says. “I actually did come here for something.”

“ _What_? Whatever it is  _do it_  and leave me alone. I’m here to relax. You are the literal opposite of relaxation for me.”

Just as Kore says that she hears the signature sound of systems powering down and alarms blaring. She feels the unique static and interference through her transference that could only be -

“Did you fucking  _lure the Stalker here_?”

“No!” Punk protests as Kore puts her rifle away and draws her sword, raising out of her crouched position. “I came here because I heard that one of his disciples was spotted in the area and I wanted to take a look.”

“You couldn’t have opened with that instead of asking me a philosophical question about our ages?” Kore spits. “You void-damned  _twit_. How does Chic put up with you?”

Punk swings a great sword off of his back and shrugs, “I’m good money. And she likes my face a lot. If it makes you feel any better - whoever it is, if they’re a disciple they can’t be stronger than the Stalker, right? And after all the training the Empress and the Alpha put us through, that’s nothing. It’ll be like a little work out.”

“As I work your splattered brains out of my boots? Yes, Punk. It  _will_  be a work out.”


	99. Chapter 99

“Hey, Percy. You’ve got a Bombard at your seven. You need any help with that, or you good?”

“I’m good.”

All heads swing around at once - Alpha’s palm raises in time to catch a fist before calmly and almost effortlessly twisting and ripping the arm the fist is attached to clean off - as Kore continues to plow through swarms of Grineer while Punk pounds his fists into a Nox.

“Did he just call you Percy?” Chic says, tucking behind a steel column as a Eviscerator shoots at her. “Did I get hacked? Again?”

“Um.” Judge quickly moves up against Kore’s back, and whispers to her, “He called you Percy?”

He heard it. They all heard it. It comes out has a question, though, because no one is sure that they didn’t hallucinate it.

Kore grunts at him and viciously shoves one of Nidus’ sharp armored elbows into his Inaros’ chest and slams them both to the side to avoid a charging Shield Lancer.

“He called you  _Percy_ ,” Judge repeats to her - making sure to keep this out of their general coms line because that one is already full with Chic repeatedly saying  _you aren’t dead? You called her Percy and she hasn’t cleaved your head off?_

“I heard,” Kore says, sounding mildly irritated.

 _Mildly_.

Just the regular brand of irritation she feels whenever they have to fight in a squad and people try to talk to her mid-fight as she’s concentrating on building mutation.

But not outraged. Not furious. Or rankled. Or slighted.

Not any of the things Judge would have guessed if someone told him that Punk calls Kore  _Percy_.

“Percy?”

“If you call me that, I don’t care if you’re  _you_ , I’ll pile drive you into the ground so hard they won’t be able to find remains of your brain.”

“But  _he can call you Percy_?”

“Listen,” Kore says, grabbing him by the syndana and hauling them across the room and away from a group of Scorches that had strategically lined up to hit as wide a spread as possible. “I had to make concessions for my own sanity. Percy? Is the least of my worries. Percy? I can live with. Him?”

Nidus points a metal-tipped finger at Punk who looks like he’s covered in strawberry jam straight from Cetus because of all the…flesh matter on his fists.

“Him? If I have to listen to him drag out the name  _Persephone_  seventeen different ways for  _one more milisecond_  I’m going to throw him into the  _sun_.”

“ _Percy_?” Judge repeats dumbly.

“Percy! Help!”

Kore doesn’t even look, she just angles Nidus’ hips a little and stomps down hard, releasing a line of mutation straight towards Punk. It strikes travels up the bodies of a ballista and two troopers, rending their flesh instantly.

Nidus’ armor plates gleam viciously as they sharpen and extend even further.

“You’re the one who brought them around, I’m  _dealing with it_ ,” Kore says, releasing Inaros’s syndana and turning around, flinging her hand outwards as a larva growth blossoms around several Grineer rushing Chic and Alpha.

Judge grimaces at the wet slurping and chewing nosies the larva makes as Empress and Alpha switch to concentrating fire on the Grineer trapped in the larva swarms’ tentacles and teeth.

“Are you…friends with him then?”

He barely manages avoiding Kore’s heel stomp in time.

“Okay! Okay!” Judge says, backing off, hands raised in surrender. “Sorry?”

“Buy me red flavor and I’ll consider forgiving you.”

“For  _him_  calling you Percy?”

“What else would you be apologizing for?”

“So…you are friends with him?”

Judge ducks down to avoid the punch Kore threw at his face.

“Don’t be stupid. Fool.”

Judge takes that as a yes that she wont admit and goes to assist Punk.

-

Kore slumps, knees shaking as she does her best to enter a controlled fall to the ground. It mostly works as she rolls onto her back, chest heaving as she closes her eyes and tries to get her entire body to stop shaking.

She hears Punk also fall, not as gracefully, a few yards away and start groaning.

They just kept coming. Waves of Sentients.

Neither Chic or Jude’s Void powers are especially strong offensively, so it was all Kore and Punk.

She can feel Jude coming closer to her, the strange calming buzzing of his Voice energy clashing up against hers, and then softly settling. Like mixing paint that doesn’t quite blend, but somehow…spins together? Words are hard.

“Take the hood off, you aren’t getting enough air,” Judge says, and she feels his gloved hands on her chest as he pushes his energy into her in waves to deplete her low energy. “Persephone.”

She can’t actually answer because she’s still gasping for air. But she gets one shaking hand to the top of the hood and releases the latch, dragging the front of the hood’s face panel down.

Her sweat-damp skin tingles in the cold night air. She didn’t realize how cold it actually is. She’s so fucking  _hot_.

Judge’s face is worried above her, eyes glowing magenta as his energy continues to wash over her and leak out into the surroundings in a brilliant saturated light show.

“Bringing another one to you,” Chic yells out over the sound of Punk’s groaning. “I’ve got him stable - physically - but he needs some energy.”

“Fuck off, he’s my battery,” Kore says without heat.

Judge’s lips quirk up into a smile and he gently arranges Kore’s hood so her face is partially obscured.

Void. She loves him so much.

There’s a loud thump and Kore feels Punk’s energy - unusually low and quiet and feeble - close to her, as well as Chic’s energy.

“Need help?” Chic asks, as Kore closes her eyes.

She feels one of Judge’s hands leave her - one hand on Punk, on one her, then - and a different touch on her wrist.

Chic’s own energy starts to spill out and over them, a light feeling - like walking through warm mist - that makes kore’s skin tingle. Not quite numbness, but a strange rippling feeling as her bruises and exhausted muscles start to ease up.

“That was close,” Judge says, “What summoned all of them?”

Kore almost wants to spit out  _Ballas_  or  _Umbra_  or  _me_.

She’s too tired for it.

“Good news is that we survived getting rid of them,” Chic says. “Thank the Stars we weren’t alone. Can you imagine if it was just me? Or me and you? Or just you and Persephone? We need to squad up more. The system is getting too unstable.”

Punk groans, “I’m starving. Does anyone have protein brick? I’ll eat it bland and flavorless, no complaints right now. Void. I’ll eat the dead Sentient body parts if that’s all we have.”

“Have Hades throw a spear, he’ll hit a condroc mid air,” Kore says.

Judge laughs, “That wasn’t on purpose. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it again. Yeah, I’ll get some protein brick once I’m done stabilizing you two.”


	100. Chapter 100

“This is going to sound weird, but does your girl like anything?” Chic says. “Anything that isn't making Corpus miserable or Tyl Rygor especially furious?”

“Why?” Judge replies. “Those are pretty much the only two one hundred percent effective ways I know to make Persephone feel better.”

“We’re approaching the end of the Earth year and I wanted to get her something,” Chic replies. “But I have no idea what she’d like.”

Judge opens his mouth to answer, but stops.

“Uh.”

“Yeah, right?” Chic says, “Does  _anything_  make her happy?”

Judge would say a new weapon, but he doesn’t really want to encourage Kore’s near worryingly obsessive need to collect weapons, test them until they’re dull metal, and recycle them for parts. Judge has seen her arsenal change over the course of  _days_ , sometimes  _hours_. He knows that she keeps some of the weapons she uses, but some of them he never sees again.

He would also say some sort of accessory, but Kore can be picky with her aesthetics. Judge once bought a syndana he thought looked pretty cool and looked similar to something Kore had. She’d taken one look at it, one look at  _him_ , and then didn’t look in his direction for about two days and Judge knew he’d chosen wrong. He still has the syndana, he just doesn’t wear it when it’s important that Kore’s in a particularly giving mood.

“What do you give her?” Chic asks and Judge’s mind is one very long panicked bursa-burst of white and ringing in the ears because  _he doesn’t think he’s ever given Kore a present ever_.

Kore’s given him gum - she keeps giving him gum, because no matter how many of them he goes through there’s always more than enough for him and for her because he’s seen her rifle through his stash when she’s bored. She’s given him clothes. She’s given him blueprints. When they first started off she gave him coordinates, cyphers, and a dozen other things.

Judge can’t really think of anything he’s given her except for flavor powder for her protein brick and that one time on Earth when they listened to old Earth reels.

He’s a terrible person. Void, he’s a  _terrible person, he can’t remember ever getting Kore a gift ever._

Judge comes back to it when Chic punches his arm.

“Ow!”

“There you are. What was that?”

“I just realized I’m a terrible person.”

“While you were doing that did you happen to remember anything about your girl’s likes and dislikes, of which I know there are many?”

“So many. So very many,” Judge says. “She likes green flavor? But…not that green flavor, but the other green flavor, you know?”

Chic stares at him blankly.

“Uh. Spicy honey?”

“I’m not dumping your girlfriend in molten steel just because she’s curious about how it would play out.”

“Well,” Judge rubs his arm where Chic punched him, “There’s this one thing she likes, but it’s not something you can really get her. It’s all I can think of, though.”

“What?”

Judge shivers and shifts on his feet uncomfortably. “Well. You know how she really, really likes being a Nidus now?”

“Yes?”

“I kind of…well. Nidus is so… _wrong_ ,” Judge says, “There are so many parts that just…shouldn’t be happening at once. And a while back when the designs for the Nidus modifications spread out and she was redoing her frame I asked her if I could…touch the brain.”

Chic just stares at him.

“I know!” Judge bursts out, “It’s kind of dumb and weird and gross, but at the time I was just. It was fascinating! And repulsing at the same time!  _Nidus’ brain is just always out there_  all the time, no defenses, and I wanted to see what would happen if I touched it and she  _let me_  and I touched her brain and it was  _terrible_. I could…I could feel the tissue resisting and it was also a little weirdly grippy? But then it pushed back like a sponge and it’s just…so bad.”

Judge shivers and gags a little.

“Why would you want to touch it, of course it’s bad,” Chic says, “It’s a fucking  _brain_.”

“I know, I regretted it immediately and I’ve been regretting it constantly all the time. But.” Judge stops and steels himself. “She. Well. She liked it. Because sometimes she’ll be in her Nidus and just look at me and I get this weird feeling and then she does this thing with her head and I can just tell that she wants me to do it again so I end up giving her…brain scratches.”

Judge shivers again.

“The texture and image is so…wrong. But she likes it and there are so few interactions that she’ll initiate willingly for herself that I can’t just  _not do it_.”

He had asked her about it, of course.

Kore had shrugged and said it felt like sunshine made solid and running over her head. He asked her if she’d want  him to run his hand through her hair and she leaned her head towards him. He did it, and she stood there, frowning.

 _“No. It’s better in the Nidus,_ ” she said.

Judge immediately resigned himself to having to touch Nidus’ brain for Kore’s benefit for the extended future.

“This doesn’t help me, boyo,” Chic says. “I can’t just buy her a head scratcher.”

“Maybe offer to scratch her brain for her,” Judge says.

“That’s so awkward.”

“It’s the only thing she likes enough to seek out!” Judge protests, “There’s nothing else she likes. I’d say have you seen her ship, but the answer is an obvious no. She barely has any decorations up and only one display next to that bird she bought at Cetus. Don’t get her another bird. Please.”

“Look, I can’t promise that because if I don’t find something else I’m going to have to default to something I know she’ll like and apparently she likes the bird enough to give it a display to look at. What else do you have for me?”

“Uh.” Judge wracks his mind for something, anything. “Swords?”

“She’s got those.”

“She’s got a bird, too!”

“You can have more than one bird.”

“You can have more than one  _sword_!”


	101. Chapter 101

Kore’s eyes open and the halls are white, like cream. Like clouds.

The light is dreamy, white and blue and gold, like the sun but gentler and faded.

This place is wrong. Kore knows this instantly. This place is wrong - these halls are already darkened, these halls are already crumbling and crumbled.

Why is she here?

The Man in the Wall? The last time she saw him was after Umbra, and it was so brief, it feels like she might have imagined it through the haze of watching Judge cut Ballas down, of reconciling her memory with Umbra’s, of everything.

Kore looks down at herself.

This is not a memory. Kore, even at the height of her…tenure as one of Ballas’ creatures was never dressed this well. They did not dress their Tenno, their slaves, like this.

As a Tenno she was an object, a tool, a thing. She may have been dressed well but it was not like this. Kore under Ballas wore her white and cream transference suit with the blue accents and she wore the piercings of gold and jade in her ears.

Kore looks at her hands, bare, except for a thin band of gold around her right wrist.

She looks down at herself, at the simple flowing robes and the flashes of gold she sees and  _hears_  as she moves, a strange cool weight that bushes against her ears and neck as she turns and tries to understand what’s happening.

This is not a memory. She never dressed like this, never.

Not even before the Zariman.

Kore hears the sound of a door sliding open and looks up in time to se it close again.

“Wait,” Kore calls out, bare feet tapping against smooth, cool flooring as she goes to the door. The door opens and she sees a shadow down the hall, before it continues to go. Kore runs after it, searching for the familiar heat in her soul and coming up empty.

Is this a dream?

If this is a dream, she could will anything into existence.

Tenno are their most powerful in dreams, aren’t they?

Kore chases the shadow down unfamiliar hallways. The shadow waits for her at the end, at the corners, just out of view, but leaves as soon as she sees it.

Kore comes to a circular room. Familiar.

This is where Umbra died. Or where Umbra was born. One of those terrible two options.

She knows it, even though it is clean of its infestation. There is no bed with a convalescing body, no portrait of a Dax, no game board, no instruments.

The windows on either side of her display two different scenes.

One, the black and gold dream-scape of Umbra’s mind.

Kore braces her hands against the cool gold window frame and sticks her head through, instantly losing all sensation of hearing. It feels as though she’s underwater, muffled and heavy.

Umbra is not here.

Part of her is glad of it. She told him to let go, and she meant it. It shouldn’t hurt him anymore, not like that. It shouldn’t live with him so vividly, so clearly.

Kore pulls back and turns the other window.

She doesn’t recognize the scene at first, not until she tentatively sticks her head through.

Somewhere on Earth, she thinks. Trees and running water, golden sunlight. But not Earth, because she’s never seen this many flowers on Earth before.

Is this her mind? As she sees Umbra, this is how hers is to be seen?

A hand grasps her shoulder and Kore gasps, jerking back and turning, bringing her arms up in front of herself out of reflex. The heat does not come.

Umbra stands in front of her, calm and unbothered.

His hand stays on her shoulder as she stares at him.

He steps back, hand falling from his shoulder but held out in front of himself. She takes his hand and he walks her into his mind.

The strange not-sound sensations lap against her as she walks into Umbra’s mind-scape and follows him. They don’t go to the tree. They follow a different stone path, to a different doorway. Window.

Umbra does not go through, but he gestures for her to look through.

Kore looks, and after a gentle nudge from Umbra, puts her head through.

It’s bright. And she’s immediately buffeted by sounds of laughter. Children’s laughter. As her eyes adjust to the bright light she sees children. Dressed like she is now.

They’re running. Not like Kore and Judge run. No. Not like they’re running after a target, or like they’re running away from something out to kill them.

These children run lazily, without a sense of danger or urgency. They laugh as they run, turning back and playfully tugging at each other. They’re children at play.

Kore recognizes none of them. These are not the children of the Zariman. These are not Tenno.

These are just…children. Regular children.

And among the children, her eyes seem to focus and zoom in on a single child.

Oh.

Oh, Isaah.

Kore watches a young Isaah, dressed like she is, laughing. Playing with a ball that lights up as he throws it, whirring and reassembling itself mid-air as it falls into the hands of one of his fellows.

Then a whistle cuts through the memory and all the children look off in another direction, and they all stop their games, running off towards the whistle as a voice calls out,  _“Back to your studies, now_.”

A gentle touch on Kore’s shoulder pulls her back out of the memory.

She turns to Umbra and she feels the faint and distant touch of his curiosity. He places a finger lightly on her chest and then points at the window. A question.

Kore looks down at Isaah’s clothes on her body.

“Are you asking me if I’ve ever been…like Isaah?”

A child. A student. Carefree. A person instead of a thing.

Umbra’s chin slowly dips down once.

Kore closes her eyes, shaking her head.

“I might have been a child once,” Kore says. Her father. A technician. Her mother. A farmer. “But not like Isaah.”


	102. Chapter 102

The Alpha’s shape is a tall, looming, menacing figure moving strangely lop-sided as it approaches. Judge can only really see the sharp piercing glow of his gold eye and blue eye, and not much else aside from the suggestion of his shadow.

According to Scylla’s observations, Judge is getting used to the other Tenno’s strange fear inducing aura. He’s only displays  _two thirds_  the amount of stress as he used to when he and the Alpha first met. It’s a good thing, Judge doesn’t think he heart would be able to handle that much adrenaline on such a constant basis.

“Found him like this,” Alpha says, even voice low and barely audible even in the relative silence of the Cetus plains at night. In winter, even.

Almost everything is eerily silent on Cetus during the winter. Like there’s nothing alive anymore.

Alpha’s tenno body is tall and lanky, like someone stretched a person out a little too much and didn’t bother with checking proportions. Judge isn’t sure if that’s just how the tenno is, or if its some sort of side-effect of the Void.

Alpha deposits a body at Judge’s feet, and Judge bends down to inspect their latest problem. Well. Cetus’ latest problem.

“Welcome back,” Chic calls out a few yards to Judge’s left, “We found nothing.”

There’s a quick ripple of energy and Chic appears right next to Judge as they stand over the body. Chic holds her hand out to Judge and Judge takes it, allowing some of his energy to flow into her.

He’s really going to have to get used to be used as a tenno battery. It feels a little good to let some of the energy off, it’s just weird that this is something he can do and it’s not something he’s going to get locked up on an asteroid for.

“I found traces,” The Empress’ voice says and the three of them turn in time to see two ripples, one of a black deeper than the night as the Empress’ deep almost brown red eyes glow into existence. Kore steps out of the void after her, a heat-shimmer of gold-turquoise and yellow eyes. “But we neither had the time nor the patience to track a hunch. What is this?”

Before anyone can answer that the body on the ground lurches, gasping and flailing,  _“Tenno!”_

“It’s alive?” Chic yelps as they all jump back, encasing themselves in their warframes.

“Yes,” the Alpha replies. “Did you need it dead?”

Before the thing can scramble to its feet the Empress spears her sword through its throat, pinning it down. They listen to its death gurgles in silence.

“No harm done,” the Empress says, “It’s dead  _now_.”

“Sorry.”

“No harm done,” the Empress repeats, sliding Saryn’s hand over Oberon’s back. “Now. This is one of the ghouls from the new batch?”

“Moved different,” Alpha says, “Acted different. Even buried different. I think so. Check.”

Chic kicks the body for any response. One never knows with ghouls.

“I think we’re good, can I get started?” Chic asks, a pink shimmer as she steps out of her warframe again. “Cool. I’m going to crack this thing open then. Anyone want in?”

Kore steps out of her warframe, using Nidus’ voice scrambler to respond, “I want its eyes.”

Nidus’ voice scrambler has always sounded like a strange mix of the Helminth’s eerie multi-layered voice and some sort of other deep whisper. It can lead to some very unnerving effects - like when she calls after her kavat,  _kitty, kitty_  in that voice.

The phrase,  _I want its eyes_ , in that same voice provides a similar sense of disturbing unease.

“What for?” Judge asks.

“Experiments on the optic nerve,” Kore replies, “I want to compare it to the Helminth’s.”

-

“I’m going to be sick,” Kore’s voice sounds wobbly on the coms line, even through her voice scrambler, “Why did I agree to this?”

“Punk, can you fly a little more steadier?” Judge asks. He’d be towing Kore behind him, except he’s holding up the rear with cover fire.

“Sorry!” Punk says, “I just get nervous when I have passengers. Hold on.”

“I’m going to throw up.”

“Can you hold that in?”

“Stop. Talking to me.”

“Don’t worry, Percy. I’ve got you, girl.”

Kore groans. Judge glances over his shoulder and sees the glimmer of Punk’s archwing engines as he weaves through asteroids and dodges missiles. Kore’s own engines are acting as auxiliary as she clings to his back.

“Once they land on the other ship,” Chic says, “They’ll be fine. Just lay down the cover fire. Your girl’s the most dangerous among the four of us and she needs to be on that ship.”

“Maybe I should’ve carried her over.”

“Punk flies like this for a living,” Chic says. “He’s a racer. Trust me. I know my sports. That’s  _my_  living.”

Judge glances back again and sees that they’re about half-way there.

“Persephone, you okay?”

Kore just responds with a quiet groan.

“Maybe don’t talk to her,” Chic says, “Focus on the fight.”

It’s very hard to focus on the fight when your partner sounds like they’re going to paint their transference chair in vomit.

“I’m just going to - can we lay down cover fire while following behind them?”

“ _Hades_.”

“Okay, sorry. I’m worried. There aren’t a lot of things that Persephone isn’t good at and this is one of them.”

“It’s cute that you hover, but don’t get us killed worrying,” Chic says. “They’re almost there, okay? And just imagine the fury she’s going to unleash once she’s got her feet on steady ground and she isn’t being ferried through missiles.”

“Or she’ll be so unsteady she accidentally hits herself.”

“I don’t think that’s possible. Pretty sure Persephone could be concussed and blasted on all sides and she still wouldn’t accidentally hit herself. Hit Punk? Probably. Herself? Never.”

“You haven’t seen how sick archwing makes her,” Judge says. “I’m worried. Punk’s doing a lot of loops.”

“He’s also a flashy show-boat. Punk, knock it off.”

“Sorry! Habit!”

“There. See? It’ll be fine. Now can we focus?”


End file.
